


The Middle Child

by morrezela



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 16:27:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where all three Winchester brothers made it out of that building without becoming angel suits, Sam has to adjust to his new role in Dean’s life and Adam’s obsession with his sex life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Middle Child

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This isn’t real. Supernatural belongs to the CW. It was created by Kripke and worked on by scads of people. None of these people happen to be me. I make no money off this.
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings: incest, top!Dean, top!Sam, switching.
> 
> A/N: I started this fic years ago when I first started watching Supernatural. I’ve changed the verb tense from present to past at least four times. I’ve change the ending three. Rereading it, I can honestly say that my take on Sam’s personality has changed over the years as has some of my writing style.
> 
> On a non-introspective note, this was number thirty three on my WIP meme. Posting this brings me up to a whole *gasp* four out of thirty-four fics posted from that meme.
> 
>  
> 
> All mistakes you find are my own.

There were days that Sam was such a whiny little bitch that he was forced to admit that Dean was actually telling the truth when he called his little brother by the derogatory moniker. They don’t happen very often. Sam had the Winchester trait of being able to ignore damn near anything he wanted to, and he usually wanted to ignore the fact that Dean could possibly be right about anything.

That didn’t make his bitch-y tendencies untrue though. Jess once yelled at him and asked if he was PMS-ing because she couldn’t believe a grown man could be that way. Never once did he consider telling Dean about that fight – for obvious reasons. He so didn’t bitch, except for when he did. Which was kind of right now. Right now didn’t include just the immediate moment either. It incorporated quite a few previous moments in time as well.

Specifically, Sam had had five of those days in a row, and he was starting to annoy himself. 

He thought that this was a good thing. Recognizing one’s own weaknesses and correcting them was another step towards being a sane and responsible adult. The kind of adult that knew right from wrong, didn’t chug down demon blood, and didn’t say “yes” to being the Devil’s taxi. Sam really wanted to be that kind of man, and it was his responsibility to the world to make sure that he turned out that way.

It’s a responsibility that he had to be very diligent about because God knew (or at least Joshua told them that God knew) that nobody else cared what Sam was doing at the moment. Dean would care, but Dean had got a sparkly, new non-addict baby brother to play with. Dean didn’t so much care about spending time with Sam anymore.

See? Total bitch there.

It’s just, it’s just that Dean wasn’t really sold on the whole Adam thing at first, right? Sam was the one that was the awesome big brother. Sam wasn’t the one struggling with the, “Dad loved some punk kid better than me,” and the, “Dad didn’t want me near the new baby,” neuroses. And yeah, if he wanted to get really whiny about it, Sam was the one who damn near got himself killed trying to keep Dean and Mini-Dean from trying to become the latest in angel wear.

And what did he get for that? A pair of runaway brothers and a broken heart because Dean just didn’t trust him anymore. Which, fine, he could handle that. It wasn’t like Dean didn’t have some basis of truth in his predictions.

Thing was though, Dean had still been his. Even when he was breaking Sam’s heart, Sam knew that Dean still loved him. And, hey, he was still Sam’s big brother. Dean totally changed his mind about Michael because of what Sam did, so there should be happy times.

And there were. There totally were. Yeah, Cas was missing in action, and Adam just didn’t groove too well with the first few hundred miles back to Bobby’s place what with the not being used to driving for long periods of time after choking on his own blood thing. But they were cool, and Dean kinda half smiled, and the world was sun and roses with just a smattering of impending doom. It had been awesome.

Taking Adam on the road with them was pretty much the only option that any of them could come up with. They could have left him with Bobby, but it wouldn’t have taken anybody any sort of mental strain to figure out that if Adam wasn’t with Sam and Dean, he was with Bobby.

Bobby might be able to fend for himself well enough, but there are all sorts of nasty sons of bitches who’d like to get their claws on the latest Winchester weak spot. Better the two older brothers take care of Adam than leaving a wheelchair bound, crotchety bachelor to both research and try to protect and train a clueless kid - especially a kid with John Winchester’s stubborn blood running through his veins.

Besides the Impala was big enough to fit three, so it just made sense to take the youngest with them on their quest to save the world.

For a while it was really, really cool. Dean was treating Sam like a partner. Sam was getting to try out the whole big brother gig, and Adam seemed to accept the fact that his older siblings weren’t evil, twisted monsters.

Which is to say that they were all miserable, slumping messes of fear and insecurity, but they weren’t suicidal.

Sam taught Adam how to shoot again - or for the first time depending on how you looked at it. Sam showed Adam how to pick locks and how to administer triage with nothing but whatever happened to be in the back seat of the car. Adam had liked that last part, having been on his way to becoming a doctor when he got eaten, and Sam could admit that he’d had let a little bit of hope well up that they could become real brothers.

It turned out that Adam was good with the research, even if he wasn’t quite as good as Sam. He was a quick learner. If his Latin wasn’t anywhere near as good as even Dean’s, he made up for it by the fact that he was really good at drawing, so they could actually sketch things down instead of just writing and hoping that a really detailed description would work. It was a talent that clearly came from his mother’s side of the family, and the kid had given Sam a tremulously pleased smile when Sam had told him that.

Sam thought that was a sign that they were bonding. Sam – as usual – was fucking wrong.

Because Sam? He was totally John Winchester the second. He taught Adam the tricks of the trade, and Dean taught him how to hustle pool and hit on women and act old enough to make the bartender believe the age on the fake ID. Adam liked Dean’s music. Adam had Dean’s taste in food. Adam fucking looked like Dean. There wasn’t one goddamned waitress from Tampa to Bismark that looked at the two of them and didn’t realize that they were related.

Adam and Dean talked and bonded over burgers and fries while Sam sat poking at his salad. He tried at first to join in on the conversations, but it was kind of like being a Great Dane playing with a pair of German Shepherds. The two of them were fast and agile and flashy and boisterous. Sam couldn’t do boisterous. He was too freaking big to do boisterous, so he just kind of huddled back in his seat and watched.

He watched as Dean’s smiles grew more frequent, and Dean’ laughs turned genuine. The pinched look in Adam’s features that Sam tried so hard to soothe away, just sort of disappeared as Dean spun story after story. Dean basked in the light of having an adoring younger brother again, and Sam couldn’t help but be uncomfortably reminded of the incident with the siren. It wasn’t like they excluded him on purpose. They weren’t being mean or rude. They just sort of forgot sometimes that there was a salad eating geek at the table with them.

Sam felt all kinds of horrible about the situation. He was too old to be experiencing the middle child blues or having jealous fits over Dean’s attention being taken away. He was old enough to realize that Adam needed whatever support he could get, and Dean was the best kind of support there was. It was what Dean did. He had years to perfect being the awesome big brother, and he learned his lessons well. He just wasn’t Sam’s awesome big brother anymore. Dean was Adam’s. Sam got that. He really did. He had just sort of hoped for something different was all.

The whole situation wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that Sam could see into the future. Demon blood visions or no, it didn’t take a genius to see where the road was headed. Adam was that perfect blend of Dean and Sam – mostly Dean with a smidgen more of traditional schooling and a heap more self-preservation instinct.

The real bonus though? Adam wasn’t a recovering addict who had broken Dean’s faith in him.

Someday soon, Dean wouldn’t need Sam anymore. Adam would be able to do the research. Adam would be able to pull Dean back from the brink of senseless sacrifice. Then they’d drive off into the sunset in the Impala with Adam riding shotgun.

It was depressing to think about.

It was also coming true before Sam’s very eyes.

At first when they went out at night, Dean would make the token effort to ask Sam along. Now they hardly even glanced at him when they left. They didn’t pay any attention if Sam booted up his laptop in the middle of a diner and researched. There were no paper straw covers blasting across his face in an attempt to draw him back into the real world.

Dean used to know that Sam needed that. He needed his brother to pull him out of his too serious shell and just… fuck.

See? There he went being a whiny bitch again.

“What the hell is this?” Adam’s aggrieved tone unexpectedly interrupted Sam’s inner pity party.

Sam slowly dragged his eyes away from the laptop screen that he’d been pretending to read for the past hour and focused in on the object dangling from Adam’s fingers.

Oh. Hell. No.

“Give that to me!’ Sam hissed as he launched out of his chair and tugged the amulet out of his brother’s grasp. His large palm hid the gold charm from sight easily even if it couldn’t hide the expression that Adam was now wearing on his face.

“You boys aren’t fighting are you? Because I might have to take away your toys if you are,” Dean drawled as he came out of the small motel bathroom.

“Adam just, he found one of Jess’s things in my duffle,” Sam lied without a second thought.

Dean’s mouth turned downwards for a second as he turned to look at his more favorite brother. “Dude, you need to learn to pay attention to whose stuff is whose.”

Adam’s face turned instantly contrite and guilty, and Sam felt like a heel. Dean had totally spun the ‘one true love of Sammy’s life’ story to Adam, and the poor kid had lapped it up. Which, okay, yeah he loved Jess, but she would’ve snatched herself bald before wearing anything nearly as ugly as the amulet. And much as he disliked it, the fact remained that if he had ever had to choose between Dean and Jess, he’d have chosen Dean all other things being equal. It sort of was a good thing that the world wasn’t fair and equal otherwise he’d be even more screwed in the head than he already was.

On the other hand, the epic love story angle was giving him all sorts of outs from his overreaction.

“I’m sorry. I thought it was Dean’s,” Adam stammered his apology as he gestured at the duffle he’d been digging in, and Sam felt another layer of jealous guilt slide into place.

Dean had obviously given Adam permission to go digging through his stuff. And yeah, Sam knew instinctively where everything was in Dean’s bag because he had been packing it the same way since he was fifteen, but Sam never got asked to dig around in there except for when Dean was exhausted or injured. He didn’t get to mess in Dean’s stuff without permission. It was a rule.

Dean never gave that permission to Sam, but he apparently would give it to Adam. 

Forcing his face into a calmer expression, Sam just said, “It’s okay.”

Dean smiled slightly and nodded, obviously pleased that the spat had been averted.

“You ready to go learn how to play darts?” he asked Adam as he moved towards the door.

Adam’s face slid into a mirror image of the cocky grin as he followed after Dean. “Darts? Man I already know darts.”

Sam watched them through the motel window as they left, but he turned away as soon as they reached the car. He couldn’t bear to see Adam crawl into his seat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam woke up to gentle fingers carding through his hair. With a sleepy grunt, he lifted his face off the laptop keyboard that he had been using as a pillow and rubbed at his eyes.

Dean was crouched down beside him. Concern, fondness and amusement swirled in his eyes. “Gotta learn to make it to the bed, Sammy. That computer isn’t worth much if you ruin it by getting your drool on it.”

“Lucifer,” Sam said by way of greeting.

Dean’s face twisted. Having seen Dean actually suck on a lemon, Sam could safely say that it looked a lot like that particular type of twisting.

“Sammy,” the Devil purred.

“No. Just… no. Okay? The answer is no. Get out of my dreams. I really don’t want to hear any of your warped truth trying to manipulate me into thinking things that aren’t true, so get out.”

“Ah, Samuel, you…”

Sam started singing Led Zepplin songs out loud in his dream and kept going until he was jarred awake by the sound of the motel door crashing shut. This turned out to be a good thing because it allowed him to roll slightly to avoid being crushed by Dean flopping down next to him. Apparently, his dream state had conjured up the whole sleeping on the computer thing because he was on one of the beds. This made him feel better because he didn’t like the idea of trying to get saliva out of his keyboard.

“Good night?” he managed to slur out of his sleep fogged mouth.

“‘night, Sammy,” Dean mumbled in agreement as he snuggled up beside him.

Sam would push him off, but that would mean trying to fight for space later or sleeping on the couch. The whole Adam and Dean bromance might have been going strong, but there was no way on Earth that Adam was comfortable enough with either of them to share that much personal space. It would be weird if he was. But Sam had shared this with Dean on and off since he was six months old, and it had only taken eleven days of sore backs and necks and hips to come to the conclusion that sharing the second bed was a way better option than trying to sleep on whatever floor, chair, or couch the motel provided.

Adam had been surprisingly cool with that decision. Sam personally thought it was because Adam knew that eventually he’d end up on the bad sleeping conditions rotation. It was the part of Adam that was like Sam instead of Dean. The part that understood that a little bit of self-interest wasn’t a bad thing.

“Well, I learned that even piss ass drunk, Dean is a better dart player than I am.” Adam informed Sam as he plopped down on the other bed. Sam frowned for a moment in confusion before the realization hit that Adam had understood that an actual question had been asked, and he was answering it.

“He’s not piss ass drunk, and yeah, he could probably still beat you if he was. Darts is a lot like hunting, and Dean’s been doing that a very long time,” Sam replied softly though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Dean was all of a sudden going to pop out of his tipsy slumber and hear Sam talking about him. Even if he did? Sam was saying good things.

“Yeah, well at least I’ve got the whole lack of experience angle working for me. Hard to keep up when the guy has a decade on you,” Adam reasoned as he flopped down on the other bed.

Sam didn’t respond to that. He just closed his eyes and pretended to settle back down into sleep until he heard both of his brothers actually reach the state of unconsciousness that he was faking.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning wasn’t so great. First off, Dean was in a great mood, and so was Adam.There were in jokes about what had happened at the bar the night before. Then there was the fact that Sam had spent most of the night pretending to sleep while the two of them had actually been doing it.

But, he was tired of being a moody bitch, and Adam had the great idea of going out for pancakes. Normally Sam avoided pancakes because refined white flour slathered in butter and syrup wasn’t really all that good for him. On the other hand, Dean used to make him pancakes when he was younger, and eating them never failed to perk his mood up just a little bit.

He rushed through his morning ritual so he could scoot out to claim the driver’s seat. It was a classic attention grabbing ploy, and it worked for the twenty seconds that Dean scowled at him before handing over the keys. A promise was a promise after all. His victory soured when Adam slid into the passenger seat while Dean crawled into the back passenger side, and the two of them started chitchatting like a pair of old ladies.

The drive was mercifully short, so Sam didn’t have to worry about driving them into a lamppost while he stared ahead and pretended not to be bothered by their Sam-excluding dialogue. Sure he could’ve broken in at some point. But it was one of those conversations where you can just tell that you’re going to get ignored, and really, what did he have to add to their discussion of the previous night’s escapades anyway?

“Hey, well, you two might’ve gotten to see some hot chick nearly pop her tits out of her shirt, but man I totally got visited by Satan himself,” wouldn’t go over well. Not that he didn’t have to mention it to Dean soon, but somehow breakfast didn’t seem to be the right time to do it.

Plus, he kind of needed Adam to be elsewhere for that particular conversation. Sam was fairly certain that Zachariah had clued the kid in on the fact that Sam was Lucifer’s vessel, but he wasn’t positive about it. Adam didn’t need all the bad stuff heaped on him at once.

Besides that, Sam really didn’t want to be having the Lucifer discussion with a practical stranger present. He needed to talk to his brother. Dean would understand, or at least would a good job of pretending to before he announced his utter lack of faith in Sam.

Fuck. Cas would be way better to talk to about this, but Sam still wasn’t sure that Castiel wasn’t being served as a side of bacon in some diner somewhere. Convulsively, he gulped at that thought as the waitress showed them to their booth. Bacon was definitely off the menu for him today.

“Well, ain’t you two just the cutest ever. I can tell that you’re related,” the waitress drawled as she came up to take their order.

“Yeah, how’s that?” Dean turned his smarmy, flirting grin on her.

“Well you just look like brothers. It’s the eyes, I think. You boys road tripping?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Adam replied with his own grin.

“It’s nice to see family doing things together when they get older,” she paused and looked over at Sam, “and your friend here? He along for the ride because he had the car or…” she trailed off, and Sam all of a sudden couldn’t take it anymore.

“I’m his boyfriend,” Sam stated with a nod towards Dean, “His dad is homophobic, so he wouldn’t ever let me meet the little brother, but gosh he’s eighteen now, you know? And I’ve been with Dean so long that it’s almost like Adam’s my brother-in-law.” Sam supplied with his most enthusiastic grin and infectious lisp.

Adam started choking on his water.

The waitress’s smile faltered a bit, but she forced it back to its previous wattage within seconds. “Well, that is special. Isn’t it? Why don’t I go put your order in?”

As she hustled away, Dean leaned over the table to hiss at Sam, “Dude!” by which he meant a myriad of censuring type words.

Sam shrugged and ignored him. Given the mood he was in after his visit from his intended angel, he had only had two options. The first had been acting like the gay boyfriend. The second had been sitting there and reverting back to his early teenage years when he had always been too big and too clumsy and nobody ever thought he was even related to John or Dean. There had been times when it felt like his entire life was a constant loop of, “One of these things is not like the other ones,” and he didn’t want to go back to that again.

“I can’t believe you said that!” Adam chimed in to support Dean.

Sam arched an eyebrow at him and gave him his best bitch face. To Dean, Cas or Bobby, the look would have just made them irritated. Adam blanched a little when faced with it.

“What is with you?” Dean reprimanded when he saw the interchange.

And, okay, so Sam might still need to work on his temper issues because the next thing he knew he was dropping the keys to the Impala in Dean’s coffee and stalking out of the restaurant. He could’ve stormed directly out, but he stopped to inform the waitress that his boyfriend of six years had just asked him to quit referring to them as a couple because it made his little brother feel uncomfortable.

The lady looked righteously offended on his behalf, and Sam figured that his two brothers deserved whatever retribution that they got.

Of course, once he’d made five blocks away, he started to calm down a bit and realized that he had no plan as to where he was going or doing. It was then that he got into real trouble. A beauty salon employee had just flipped the open sign over, and Sam could see his floppy hair in the reflection on the picture window.

His face had never been anything like Dean’s, and the way his hair had grown had only ever accented their differences. He’d always preferred to wear it longer instead of in the shorter, more economical styles that Dean favored. Its color had never had the golden tones that Dean’s had. Today wasn’t even close to being the first time that people didn’t recognize that they were brothers, that Dean was his.

Most of the stylists were busy, but there was this cute punk girl who had an open chair. Fresh out of beauty school, she’d gotten her job there because of her aunt, but she wasn’t getting good business. Sam supposed it was because the hot pink and blue hair look just wasn’t all that popular in small town America.

Amber, as she told Sam to call her, talked him out of the military buzz cut. She did cut it short, but put some longer layers on top to soften the style. Then, because she had time, she offered to do a color at a discounted price.

A non-goth, non-punk, non-midlife crisis man color his hair? Sam almost told her ‘no.’ Then he almost had her make his hair Adam and Dean’s color before he realized that he was maybe taking his psychological issues a bit far. So he wasn’t made from the perfect Winchester mold. So what?

He ended up having her dye his hair dark Irish red. She told him he looked awesome. He knew that it was a lie, but he didn’t care. Then, just to spite Dean, he paid her with some of their hard hustled cash supply so that she didn’t get her wages cut when the credit card bounced.

He looked like an idiot and felt like one too. The only redeeming grace about the whole thing was that he had gone with the red. Dean only knew two famous redheads, and he couldn’t call Sam a one of them without sounding like an absolute asshole. Lucille Ball and Jessica Rabbit were off limits because one was Lucy and the other was Jess. Dean wasn’t that much of an asshole.

Sam walked around town for a good four hours before making his way back to the motel room. The back of his neck felt oddly exposed with all of the air that kept getting to his skin, and he wondered if it would feel different the next time that he got choked. Then he wondered if he should worry that it was a forgone conclusion that he would get choked sometime in the near future.

It occurred to him a half dozen times during his walk that there was a good chance that Adam and Dean had just taken off without him. Back in the day, Dean would never have done something like that unless Sam had specifically done the leaving first with an announced intention of not coming back, but that was before he had been replaced by the far superior Adam. And also before Dean had gone off the deep end and tried to sacrifice himself, but Sam was still hoping that Dean’s running away gig was a one shot thing.

The Impala was still in the motel lot when Sam made it back though, and he took a moment to try to discern if he was happy or sad about that. He didn’t come to a conclusion about it other than that it didn’t matter because his feelings weren’t going to change anything and nobody gave a crap about Sam’s feelings anyway.

Okay, maybe Bobby did, but Bobby was wheeling around his home looking for ways to stop the apocalypse and didn’t have time to counsel Sam through his fraternal issues.

The room was quiet when Sam let himself in. If not for the instant vibe of tension down his back, Sam would’ve bet money that Dean and Adam had parked the Impala and just walked to the nearest bar to get a head start on the night’s drinking games. Dean didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows twitched upwards when they caught sight of Sam’s hair. Sam felt a twinge of smugness at the reaction. 

“Oh, God. You look like Carrot Top.” Adam’s voice sounded horrified.

Dean smacked Adam’s shoulder. “Dude, don’t talk to your brother that way.”

Sam snorted and shuffled off to his laptop to do research. He’d be damned, if he wasn’t already, if he was going to be the one to kick off a discussion about the diner incident. Screw them and their secret little Dean club. Why would Sam want to be a part of that anyway? He’d just, he’d start his own little hunting dynasty when the end of the world was over.

Maybe he’d get a dog. Or a whole pack of them. Maybe he’d become the crazy dog guy hunting down creepy crawly things in his RV.

“Sam,” Dean’s voice was commanding, and Sam barely fought back the urge to flick his eyes over at his brother. Fuck Dean anyway.

“Dean, man, why don’t you go get us some dinner?” Adam said quietly.

Sam did glance up at that. From the look on Dean’s face, he was as surprised at the comment as Sam was. They weren’t used to having an intermediary in their fighting. When they’d been younger it was always Dean diffusing the fights that Sam had with their father. When they got older, Bobby would try to help out, but they had years of history with him that kept getting in the way, and Cas just didn’t quite get what they were fighting about all the time.

Adam though, Adam was an unknown quantity. His request was an obvious ploy to head off the explosion that was about to happen. But Dean wouldn’t want to get on his other brother’s bad side, and they did need food.

“Fine,” Dean gritted out as he grabbed his coat and stalked towards the door. He didn’t say anything about finishing his conversation with Sam later. He didn’t need to.

As soon as the door shut, Sam turned to look fully at Adam. “Look…”

Adam waved his hand at Sam and shook his head. “Don’t. God, I feel bad enough already without you emoting at me.”

Sam felt his forehead crinkle together in confusion. “What?”

“I’m totally cutting in on your Dean time, and I feel horrible about it. I mean, I thought when Zachariah said you were codependent on each other that it was just another one of his lines to make me do what he wanted. But you’re, you’re practically in Dean withdrawal over there.”

“I am not! That’s, that’s…” Sam sputtered.

“You’re acting out to get his attention.”

“That isn’t true.”

Adam’s disbelief was plain on his face. Sam really wanted to punch him.

“Yeah, because you didn’t go crazy or anything today.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Actually, I do. Because while you’re wandering around feeling bad, I get to hear all about the wonders of Sammy Winchester every fucking night.it’s getting to be a bit much. I thought at first that I was helping, you know? Giving you guys a little space from each other.”

“Dean tells stories about me because we’ve spent so much time together, he’s just…”

“Completely obsessed with you?”Adam cut in.

“No!”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, actually he is. I thought that I was saving you from him, you know? I woke up in that dingy old house, and you were trying so hard to be this good guy. Then Dean comes along, and he’s ten kinds of fucked up. Don’t get me wrong, I really like him, and he saved my bacon, but he’s a little off his gourd. I thought that I could, I don’t know, protect you from him.”

Sam wasn’t sure whether he’s more insulted that Adam thought Dean was some sicko or that Sam would need Adam to protect him.

“What is it with my brothers thinking I need to be protected?” Sam hissed.

Adam made a vague hand gesture. “You’ve got that… look.”

“Dude, I’m Lucifer’s vessel! I don’t need protection from you. You probably need protection from me!” Sam exploded, and well, if Zachariah hadn’t clued Adam in, the cat was out of the bag now.

Adam’s snorted inelegantly, and Sam was perversely glad that it wasn’t a facsimile of Dean’s sneer. “Yeah, I need protection from the man carrying around his symbol of undying love for his big brother.”

Sam felt his face turn white. “You told Dean about the amulet?”

“Dude, no. About an hour after you disappeared, he started rubbing at his chest. I asked if he was having a heart attack, and he started rambling about it being a nervous tic. He kept doing it though, so I said maybe we should go to the hospital to make sure he was okay, and he told me about this stupid amulet thingy that you’d given him and how he used to play with it whenever you were gone too long. And let me tell you? That is just very, very gay.”

Sam wanted to feel touched, but yeah, that was kind of creepy.

Adam wasn’t finished. “It’s like all Sam, all the time with him. Sam this, Sam that. I think every other word in his brain is ‘Sam.’ And you really don’t want to know how much he likes sleeping with you. He gets all antsy when we’re about to head back, like he can’t wait to snuggle with you, and it’s kind of gross.”

“Dean’s just comfortable with me. He feels responsible for me, and…”

“You’re clueless. Really. I mean, I can’t believe that I’m standing here advocating this, but you need to get with the incestuous gay love here, because that guy has it bad for you.”

Sam was pretty sure that the correct response to that should be a break to Adam’s nose in defense of Dean, but he just sat there staring at his little brother like he’d lost his marbles. Hell, maybe the kid had. Zachariah didn’t strike Sam as the type of angel who got things right all the time. Maybe there had been a glitch in bringing Adam back, and his grey matter hadn’t been reconstructed properly. They had done a fairly thorough job of burning the kid’s body.

“Dude, are you listening to me? He totally molests you in his sleep and spoons with you all the time. And that just isn’t natural because Dean is really not cut out to be the big spoon, you know? It fucks with the symmetry,” Adam continued in what was a very random and not well thought out argument about why Sam should take up living in sin with their brother.

Thankfully Dean chose that moment to come back with the takeout, and Adam didn’t seem inclined to continue his theories about Dean’s romantic inclinations.

Dean being Dean made everything uncomfortable and ended up having it out with Sam despite Adam’s attempts to calm the situation down. Not that they actually argued about anything close to being what was really bothering them. No, somehow the whole conversation spun downwards until it was Dean snottily informing Sam that his new hair color was going to attract too much attention and Sam sniping back at Dean that he had a right to self-expression.

Sleep was elusive to Sam that night, but it didn’t have anything to do with Dean putting his back towards Sam and sleeping as far to the edge of the bed as he could manage. It totally didn’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Things did not improve from that point on; they just piled more misery onto Sam’s large shoulders. Dean was alternately ignoring him and sending concerned glances in his direction. Adam kept trying to convince Sam to just hookup with their older brother.

Added to their awkward little family situation, Sam still hadn’t told Dean about his visit from Lucifer. In truth he was a little bit worried that Adam might’ve sprung the whole destined for each other incest theory on Dean. The way that Lucifer had approached Sam was a little suspicious if you looked at with the wrong kind of brotherly love on your mind.

Then there was the whole jumping thing that Sam felt obligated to do now whenever Dean got too close to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Dean close. It was that he didn’t want Adam misinterpreting things. Avoiding the gay touching seemed like a good way to prove that he wasn’t pining for Dean. Sam was a tough, manly man.

Dean just got surlier as they drove around the country looking for ways to stop the apocalypse, and he started stealing the covers at night. It was annoying, especially as Dean had never been one to feel the cold. He slept on top of the covers most of the time, so Sam knew that he was doing it just to be pissy. About what, Sam had no clue. It wasn’t like he wasn’t giving Dean ample time to spend with Mini-Dean.

“Sam, you’re killing me. Really,” Adam said from the backseat as soon as Dean had wandered into the gas station to pay for their fuel.

“Would you give it a rest?” Sam hissed as his eyes glued themselves to the station door to watch for Dean’s return. The last thing he needed was for Dean to overhear any of what Adam was trying to say.

“He’s like, broken hearted and shit. It’s depressing as all get out.”

Sam rubbed his forehead and reminded himself that if he had made it his entire life without actually being the one to physically kill Dean, he could certainly have the control to not kill his annoying little brother.

“ADAM!” Sam growled threateningly, and he was a bit taken back at how much like his father he sounded.

“It’s true!” Adam protested.

Just as Sam twisted in his seat to give Adam the proper tongue lashing that little brothers who advocate older sibling incest deserve, Dean came back out of the store laden down with sodas and junk food. Of course, between Dean’s good eyesight and the fact that the Impala’s windows were clean, he could see that Sam and Adam had been fighting about something.

“Okay, Sam Adams, what’re you fighting about?” Dean asked as soon as he leveraged the door open.

Sam was gratified to see a look of disgusted annoyance flash across Adam’s face in response to the hybrid moniker. He was sure that it mirrored his own even if Adam’s facial twitches themselves were more like Dean’s.

“Football,” Sam answered shortly.

Dean, while pursuing all things macho, wasn’t exactly a big football follower. The games were too long and often ran into the evenings. It messed up with prime hunting time. When he wanted to watch sports, he preferred baseball or basketball or even golf. It surprised Sam because Dean loved horror films, but avoided watching athletic games that had higher violence quotients.

“Sam doesn’t think that Favre is the freaking traitor that he is.” Adam groused in response to Sam’s ruse.

“Who?” Dean asked, and Sam would be lying if he didn’t find the perfect look of confusion on his face just a little endearing.

“Favre? You know the guy that ‘quit’ football and is now in bed with the Vikings?” Adam scowled, and Sam could see that all the vitriol wasn’t made up just to lead Dean down the primrose path.

“Uh…”

“Favre was the Packer’s golden boy, and now he’s playing for their rival team. The Cheeseheads don’t like that much,” Sam explained.

“He’s a traitor!” Adam protested.

Dean’s eyebrow twitched before he calmly said, “Isn’t he from Louisiana?”

That, that sent Adam off on an honest to God rant about football and professional sports until Dean pointed out that he shouldn’t be so upset about a guy who couldn’t even pronounce his own last name right because it was quite clearly “Favre” and not “Farve.”

Adam, when Sam dared to glance back over his shoulder, was actually gaping at the insult. There was a blissful two minute respite of silence before his half sibling started in even more vehemently on the subject. He ranted for a good fifteen minutes until Dean slapped one of his tapes in the deck and cranked the volume so loud that not even Sam could think anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam learned his lesson. Instead of talking to Sam about his “Obvious Undying Love” for Dean, he started leaving post-it notes in Sam’s stuff.

“Dean was talking about you in his sleep last night.”

“Dean thinks you need to eat more because your cheek bones are showing too much. He’s totally checking you out.”

“Dean took way too long deciding which package of underwear to buy you at Wal*Mart.”

When Sam finally had time to pull his brother aside and point out that Dean could indeed read, and the post-its were damning evidence, Adam promised not to write them anymore. Sam was satisfied with his problem solving until Adam started texting him. It was creepy because Adam was young enough to do that thing where he could be talking to a person and just touch text, and a guy would never see him do it.

Dean would be talking to him about proper knife throwing technique or how hot the librarian was, and the next thing Sam knew, his cell would start buzzing with an incoming text alert.

“He totally spnt all nght talking about how U left hm 4 Stanfrd.”

“U Know U luv him.”

“OMG! I saw him in the bathroom this mrning. No wnder Ur scared.”

Sam wasn’t sure what was more annoying: Adam’s inconsistent mix of normal writing and terrible texting, or the fact that he’d have a whole queue of comments backlogged on his phone by the time that he could finally get alone to read them. The little shit kept sending whatever thought popped into his head regardless of appropriateness.

It was like he was being stalked by Dean. No, it was like he was being stalked by Dean when Dean was sixteen and sex was constantly on his brain. Of course, Dean always had always had sex on the brain right up until the apocalypse started to happen. Which, coincidentally, was when Dean started not trusting Sam, and their relationship went even farther to hell than it already was.

It was proof enough for Sam that he was sucking the sex out of Dean and not inspiring it.

He was relieved when Dean dragged Adam out to a bar. Even though the texts didn’t stop, he was at least spared the torture of not being able to look at them right away. Dean wasn’t around to peer over Sam’s shoulder and see all of those horrible little messages about them.

Sam had forty minutes worth of peace before Adam started in. No messages this time, just shot after endless shot of Dean’s ass as he hustled the locals at the pool tables. The fifth shot was the one that pushed Sam over the edge. Dean’s jeans had gotten a little worse for wear, and the very beginning of his ass crack was on display. It was revolting. Sam was totally going to strangle Adam in his sleep.

Of course, by the time that Adam and Dean came back to the motel that night, Sam had already nodded off in the flimsy plastic chair that was acting as a desk chair for the cheap, plywood desk the room had. He was woken by the feeling of Dean manhandling him out of it, and it was really unfair that Dean could be that steady when he was as drunk as Sam suspected he was.

“Tha’ sit, Sammeh. Time t’ go t’ bed,” Dean slurred as he tried to drag Sam up onto his feet.

Adam was snickering. Sam wanted to point out that this was in no way, shape, or form gay, but he figured that protesting would only serve to convince Adam that he was in gay denial. Sam didn’t want that because Adam’s thought processes were too much like Dean’s. If he thought that Sam was in denial about his sexual preferences instead of just in denial about his incestuous feelings, Adam was sure to start leaving gay skin magazines around.

“Dean, man, can walk on my own,” Sam said as he pushed away Dean’s unhelpful hands and staggered over to one of the beds.

“Hey!” Adam protested, “That’s my bed!”

“Suck it,” Dean responded as he crashed down next to Sam. He almost immediately rearranged himself so that he was half sprawled on top of his brother.

“Dude,” Sam grunted as he tried to push Dean so that he was resting on mattress instead of baby brother.

Dean made a whiny noise and snuggled back in closer, his nose burrowing into Sam’s chest. “Cold ‘n drunk. Lemme ‘lone.”

Sam sighed and gave up. It was sort of nice that Dean was drunk enough that he had forgotten about his not touching Sam thing. And Sam could afford to not flinch away because Adam was going to think it was the gayest thing ever anyway.

“You’re welcome.” Adam said as soon as Dean’s started making the snuffling sounds he always made when he was drunk and sleeping.

“What?” Sam asked to be polite, because truthfully? He didn’t want to know what Adam was going to say.

“I told him all about how you thought he was the best brother ever, and you were afraid that he didn’t love you anymore.”

Sam wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was the truth, but then again… “I never said that.”

“Well, not in words, but I’m tired of seeing the uncommunicative debacle your relationship is. I mean, my mom? She used to say that I was a stubborn ass, and I was going to drive my future wife crazy with my imploding of my personal feelings. You two though? I’m surprised that you ever get anything settled between you.”

Sam frowned and tried not to get upset at his meddling little brother. It wasn’t that he was opposed to slapping Adam around a little. It was that he didn’t want to interrupt Dean’s sleep.

“So, let me get this straight,” Sam began, ignoring the little chuckle that Adam gave at the word ‘straight.’ “You told Dean all about my supposed feelings about him, that I supposedly told you, and he responded by getting shitfaced drunk.”

“Well when you put it that way…”

“Dude, can you just not interfere with my relationship with Dean? It’s kind of not in a good place right now.”

“I know! But the two of you aren’t doing anything to fix it! You just seem to let everything build up to this horrible eruption point and people literally die from the consequences.”

Sam ground his teeth together and silently cursed his father for passing his stubborn gene on to all three of his sons. “Adam. Butt. Out. Of. It.” Sam snarled quietly.

Adam snorted and flopped down on the other bed. “Whatever, man. Goodnight.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam’s roots started to grow out. Dean didn’t say anything, but Adam made constant redneck jokes that quickly degenerated into southerner jokes which he spun around to include cousin marrying jokes. If Sam wasn’t so pissed at him, he’d be a little impressed about how devious his little brother’s mind was. It was terrifying to see how easily he could constantly bring up the subject of having intimate relations with a relative and have it not become apparent.

Well, it was apparent to Sam, but it didn’t seem to be apparent to Dean. As long as Dean didn’t notice, Sam was going to keep his mouth shut because he so wasn’t giving Adam the opportunity to play Dr. Phil.

“You should get a haircut,” Dean grunted over breakfast one morning.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed quickly before Adam could finish swallowing the grits that Sam had ordered for him while he was in the bathroom.

It had been worth whatever sort of retribution the little fucker was going to wreak on him. First of all, it was grits. Second of all, Dean had smirked approvingly at Sam when he’d done it. Maybe even Dean was getting tired of the southern hick cracks.

“You going to go purple this time? You know, you might want to try to stand out a little more in a crowd. Your freakish height might not be enough,” Adam suggested once his mouth was clear.

Dean elbowed Adam on Sam’s behalf, so Sam just smiled beatifically and said, “You might want to put some more butter on your grits. They taste better that way.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam hated having his hair super short. He always had. As much as Dean teased him, floppy bangs made him feel secure. Too short of hair made him feel exposed. He should have thought of that before he decided that he needed to have a moment of rebellion, but he hadn’t.

And really? He had other things to worry about right now other than whether or not he looked like a Winchester. He didn’t. He still felt like Dean was cutting him out, and there was the whole little-brother-Adam thing that he needed to get a grip over.

Because once Sam left, he was sure that Adam was going to tell Dean that Sam left because of his unrequited gay love. And, hell, Dean was sure to track Sam down then and try to fix things in his own Dean way of guilt and self loathing.

Dean would believe Adam’s insane theory of brother love. He’d assume that he’d done something to Sam in their childhood that made him want him. Dean would make the whole situation his fault. Not that there was a situation outside of Adam’s freaky brain.

Sam walked to the hair salon and back. Dean mocked him for going to a hair salon, but Sam wanted to keep as much of his hair as possible, and most barbers in small towns weren’t keen on listening to grown men worry about their pretty hair. Women understood.

He’d have taken the Impala, but there was laundry to do and supplies to pick up. Adam had drawn the short straw for doing laundry, and Dean had volunteered for the supply run because he got to pick out the emergency snack stash that way. Both of the necessary tasks required moving around bundles of things, a haircut didn’t. Sam had said that he’d walk. Walking took time, and it would give him time to get over the loss of his hair so that Dean didn’t call him a girly, emo man.

Dean and Adam were already back at the motel by the time that Sam returned. They were watching some sort of sports show that Dean just looked bored with, but Adam was totally engrossed in. There was a plastic bag sitting by Sam’s laptop, which Sam took to mean that Dean had bought him a present.

It wasn’t his birthday, for which he was extremely glad because his birthday was not a good date, and it wasn’t a holiday of some sort either. He didn’t say anything to Dean about it as he walked over to snoop in the bag. Dean wouldn’t want the attention or the notice.

There were two hats inside: a nondescript, navy blue baseball cap and a grey and black knitted skullcap. He jerked his eyes instinctively over to his older brother and found that Dean’s own gaze was already locked on him.

He smiled slightly in acknowledgment, and Dean grinned a little back.

Adam made exaggerated kissy faces behind Dean’s back.

Sam was going to put itching powder in the kid’s shorts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day they hit the road early, so Sam put on his new skullcap to ward off the early morning chill before quickly shrugging on some clothes. He was tired, so he practically crawled into the passenger’s seat and dozed off before Dean made it five blocks from the motel.

“Sammy,” Dean purred against Sam’s thigh.

“Are you trying to freak me into saying the ‘Y’ word? Because, really? This is disturbing.”

“You want your brother. I can give him to you.” Lucifer replied easily.

“Oh, yeah, because the whole forced consent incest thing is really my style. I want to let Satan use freaky supernatural power on my brother so that he’ll give me blowjobs.”

“Why not? You know Dean doesn’t want you. He’s replacing you even as we speak. It’s ironic that his name is Adam, don’t you think? You truly are my vessel.”

“So, what? Dean isn’t allowed to change his mind about who his favorite brother is? It’s not like he had an informed choice before, and really? I’m a freak. I think we covered that with your first visit, right? I mean, I’m not exactly great brother material here.”

“He’s leaving you.” Lucifer protested.

“And what? I’m going to end the world because Dean’s going to leave me? That isn’t an overreaction at all. My world ends, so I’m going to make everybody feel my pain. Yes, I’ll probably end up a very strange hunter who drinks himself to death. So what? Doesn’t mean I have to make the world explode.”

“What?”

“I love Dean. I want him to be happy, and I deserve what I’m going to get. Adam is a better person than I am. He adores Dean, and he gives him what he needs. If you love somebody, let them go.” Sam wasn’t sure that he really believed that line, but the fallen angel popped out of his dream, so he figured that he’d at least succeeded in some fashion.

He woke up to Dean shoving a twizzler up his nose. Sam wondered sometimes why it was that he wanted Dean to be happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bobby called midweek about a tome for sale at some used bookstore in Tulsa. The stora was a real hole in the wall place, but it was cool as all get out. Sam wandered around in glee staring at the dusty old books while Dean haggled on the price of the one that they were after. It never paid to have Sam do the haggling. Any store owner worth their salt could see the interest in his eyes and know that he wasn’t going to walk away without it.

Dean though, he could lie and not get caught. He needed the book just as much, but he didn’t have an innate love for the knowledge that it contained that would get in the way of his bargaining.

When Dean finally came to find him, Sam had moved on from the occult and religion section and was running him fingers up and down the spines of the law books. He might’ve run away to Stanford just to escape, but his choice in majors hadn’t been a random one. He’d been raised to believe in fighting for the good of the people.

“Sam?” Dean’s voice sounded worried, and Sam made his face as open as possible when he turned around to face his brother. He wanted Dean to see that he was here. This was now, and he wasn’t having any sort of lingering longing for the past.

When they collected Adam from the medicinal section of the store, his face was open too. It was filled with loss and pain. He stayed with Sam that night instead of going out with Dean to hustle up some cash to replenish the significant dent that the book had made in their stash. Sam had stood up to go with Dean, but his brother had pushed him back when Sam’s hand had reached for his jacket.

“He needs to be with somebody right now, Sammy. He needs somebody that understands him,” Dean had whispered so that he couldn’t be heard over the noise of the television program that Adam was mindlessly watching.

That didn’t make any sense to Sam because Dean understood loss just as well as he did. “Not that kind of loss,” Dean said, and Sam figured that he must’ve read his face because Sam knew that actual words hadn’t passed his lips.

“I never had a shot at normal, Sammy. I never wanted it,” Dean muttered as he backed away and left Sam standing in the middle of a motel room without a clue as to what he was supposed to do to fix the situation. It was at that moment that Sam realized he sucked at being an older brother.

“Dean’s an ass,” Adam commented from his place on the couch. “I cannot believe he just ditched you here with me.”

“He didn’t ditch me.”

“Oh, yeah? So you weren’t just about to go out with him for the first time in weeks?”

Sam shrugged and decided that defending Dean’s honor was worth more to him than sitting around trying to talk to Adam about his feelings. He didn’t think Adam saw him as much of anything other than Dean’s bitch anyway, so…

“He’s just worried about you. Dean doesn’t understand missing college. He doesn’t understand losing his dream of becoming something better. He’s only ever wanted to save people and have his family around him. Those are kind of black and white prospects there. Either he does or he doesn’t. There is no pay increase or accolade for being a good hunter other than getting called to do more jobs.”

“And this gives him a reason to dump you here because?”

“Because he loves you, and he figures that I understand how you feel. Family, remember?”

“Still a freaking jerk. What about what you need? What about what he needs?”

Sam almost laughed at that. “Adam, I don’t think you get that Dean’s the first born. He’s bossy and rude and never, ever thinks about himself first. Not on the important things anyway. And I… well I’m not so high on Dean’s importance list right now.”

“Well, God. That sucks. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I do NOT want to be the baby of the family. I mean, look, I grew up being an only child. I am the first born, and you’re all… I can’t do this being taken care of shit. I can’t… It’s like you’re this, this…”

“Second born child letting his big brother call the shots?” Sam suggested.

“How can you stand him treating you like that?”

“Treating me like what? Adam, this is what we do. On the days that we don’t have an apocalypse we help people. I just always get left being the shoulder to cry on because Dean isn’t so good with all of that. And, yeah, I get tired of Dean treating me like I’m the little brother that doesn’t know anything, but he’s my partner.”

Adam arched a single eyebrow at Sam, and Sam felt himself blush. “Not. Like. That.”

“Yeah, because I know tons of guys that call their brother their partner.”

“It’s like being business partners!” Sam protested.

“The way you said it? You might as well have said ‘Soul Mate’ with big capital letters and exploding hearts.”

“Have you ever seen an exploded heart? They aren’t romantic, and quit trying to convince me that I’m in love with Dean.”

“You’re in denial about it now?”

“I’ve always been in denial!”

Adam smirked.

“Not like that!” Sam almost whined. He really needed a drink.

“Whatever, dude. I’m not the one wearing his brother’s underwear.”

“What?”

“You didn’t even notice that I tossed a couple of his pairs in with your stuff. He’s like a size smaller,” Adam cackled.

Sam wasn’t sure what that was supposed to prove aside from the fact that he was used to having ill fitting underwear, but he let it slide. Adam was no longer in a funk, so he’d accomplished his appointed task. He just wished that it hadn’t been at his expense.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam arranged to be engrossed by a special on lutefisk fishing the following night, leaving Sam to follow Dean out to the bar. It was another nameless town from the one that they had been in the previous night, so the locals weren’t suspicious when Dean started racking up the pool table to take their hard earned money away from them.

Sam played a few rounds of darts, but mostly sat and drank and watched Dean play pool. It was nice to be able to just be with Dean without the distraction of Adam being around. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d been able to relax and have a few beers.

It was sort of like the good old days when the pain of Jess’s death had started to fade, and they didn’t even know Azazel by name. A time when there was no apocalypse, there were no deals made, and angels weren’t an everyday topic.

When they finally found a way to stop the end of the world, Sam was going to have to say goodbye to all of it. Adam would be a better hunting partner for Dean. Once the kid knew the ropes, he was going to be dynamite. He’d never have the natural instincts about it that Dean and Sam had, but Bobby hadn’t been born into the lifestyle either, and he was still one of the best.

Adam wouldn’t bring Dean the baggage and the weight that Sam did. It hurt to think about their inevitable parting, but Sam really wanted Dean to be happy. He wanted to see the excitement in Dean’s step again. Dean needed to be able to trust his backup, and Adam would never let him down like Sam had.

“You look like you’re having a good time,” Dean commented as he plopped down on the stool next to Sam.

Sam shrugged and forced a small smile to his lips. “Been a while since I’ve been out.”

“Yeah.”

Dean didn’t say anything more and neither did Sam. What was coming in Sam’s future was coming. He wasn’t going to mar what little time he had left with Dean.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam was as tenacious as Dean. After their little conversation, Sam thought that the kid had finally realized that there was enough of an absence of normal in their lives without adding incest to the mix. Turned out that Adam hadn’t recognized that fact.

Sam was starting to worry that maybe taboo relationships were a kink of some sort that Adam had. Maybe Sam’s little brother had some repressed sexuality issues that he was sorting out by projecting gay incest onto his older siblings. It would make a certain amount of sense.

Of course, Dean’s habit of sleep cuddling like a maniac wasn’t helping things. Sam could see where a confused-about-his-sexuality Adam could misinterpret his and Dean’s closeness for more than just brotherly affection. The conclusion wasn’t hard to jump to when Dean felt the need to practically glue himself to some part of Sam each night. It was obviously the wrong assumption to make, but whatever. Adam was clearly just as much of an obsessive freak as his siblings were.

Sam didn’t worry about it much though. Adam and Dean were still spending more time together than Sam was spending with both of them combined, so it really was Dean that needed to have the skills to deal with a freaky brother. As he already had those, Sam wasn’t too worried about taking the time to cultivate his own little brother tending acumen.

While Dean and Adam pounded the pavement for money, booze and hunts, Sam spent his spare time quietly working on self appointed projects. When researching the end of the world got to be too much, he’d look into ways to have amicable separations. He didn’t want there to be bad blood between him and his brothers when the time came for Dean to kick him to the curb because the Impala was getting too cramped.

And yes, he was doing it partially because he wanted to be able to say that he was being the bigger man. The hurt of the thought of parting from Dean wasn’t as bad as it had been before. It had transformed into more a dull throbbing than the sharp stabbing pain that it used to be. When the time came for them to actually go their own ways, it wasn’t going to be anything worse than a wistful whisper or some girly thing like that. Sam was going to make sure of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sammy, my Sammy,” Dean’s voice purred into Sam’s ear as his hand slid soothingly over Sam’s chest and down his abdomen to circle around his bellybutton.

“Dean,” Sam groaned as he felt his brother’s heat spooned up behind him. Dean responded by pulling Sam’s earlobe into his mouth, then biting down gently. Then he bit down harder, and holy fuck did that hurt!

Sam gasped as he jerked awake to a stinging pain in his ear. His first thought was that Dean had gotten so trashed the night before that he had decided to pierce Sam’s ear while he was sleeping. That thought was quickly disproven as there was actual sunlight filtering through the motel room curtains, and even Dean wouldn’t still be drunk.

“Oww,” Sam muttered only to be rewarded for his whining with a hand clapping over his mouth.

“Shhh,” Dean admonished with a quiet whisper, “you’ll wake him up.”

Sam rolled his eyes and licked at the hand covering his mouth.

“Dude! Gross!” Dean whisper complained as he jerked his hand away and wiped it on their coverlet. The reaction would’ve been amusing except for the fact that Sam now knew exactly what Dean’s skin tasted like. Sam was terrified at the possibility that the flavor was going to show up in his dreams the next time he tried to sleep.

Not that he hadn’t ever tasted Dean on his tongue before, but most of those times it was the result of hunting. It was the taste of spraying blood, or sweaty, dirty skin that was the consequence of a poorly aimed blow or rescue attempt. Tasting Dean had never happened so closely to an erotic dream before. Especially the incestuous kind of erotic dream that Sam was so going to kill Adam for, because Sam could excuse Satan for trying to put the incest thoughts in his head, but his own brother? It was just wrong for a soldier of good to be doing the devil’s work.

“Let’s get breakfast,” Dean murmured against Sam’s ear, obviously unaware of Sam’s tumultuous thoughts.

“Yeah, just lemme shower first,” Sam grunted.

“No! It’ll wake him up!” Dean hissed, and Sam frowned a little at that.

“You want to ditch Adam here?”

Dean smacked an open palm on Sam’s shoulder in an obvious ‘duh’ sort of way. “I’m going to go out to the car. You change. And be quiet!” Dean rolled off the bed and walked out the door before Sam could ask any of the myriad of questions that skittered through his brain.

With a grunt, Sam rolled out of bed and put on his clothes in almost complete silence. It was a skill that he hadn’t had to use often, but one that his father had drilled into both him and Dean at an early age. Not only was quietness sometimes necessary when hunting otherworldly beings, but the getting into clothes and walking softly thing was an absolute must incase the authorities ever came knocking.

Dean didn’t say anything in the car, and he didn’t want Sam to say anything either. Sam could tell that because he was fluent in Dean-speak. He’d long ago learned that Dean cranking the volume up on the radio before both of Sam’s ass cheeks had actually made contact with the passenger seat was a sign that something was getting ground up by the rusty gears of Dean’s mind, and Dean so didn’t want to talk about it.

It was a subtle clue. At least, it was subtle for Dean in normal Dean mode and not despairing, world-ending Dean mode.

When they got to the diner, Dean ushered them into the farthest corner booth the instant the waitress indicated that they could seat themselves. Sam didn’t say anything while they waited for coffee and water. He just smiled patiently when Dean had the gall to hang onto his menu for longer than necessary, like somehow Sam would be fooled into thinking that Dean didn’t actually know what he wanted for breakfast long before he’d even put the key into the Impala’s ignition three days ago let alone that very morning.

“So,” Sam finally drawled out once both Dean and the waitress had made the appropriate faces at his order of oatmeal and wheat toast.

“What?” Dean snapped, all defensive bluster.

Sam arched an eyebrow at him because, yes, he did want to know what it was that Dean wanted to talk about. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to sit there and drag it out of his brother just so Dean could have somebody else to blame for what was about to come out of his mouth.

“Okay, so I was thinking that we should start looking into some new IDs,” Dean started out hesitantly.

Sam frowned a little at that. “Why?”

Dean shrugged and looked over to where the hostess was rolling silverware into napkins, making tidy little packets for diners to tear apart.

Sam would’ve figured that Dean’s Adult ADD was acting up if not for the fact that Dean’s face was settled in a smarmy leer. The hostess was a cute, pudgy little woman bordering on the edge of seventy if not eighty. He was pretty sure that Dean wasn’t actually considering sex with her so much as he was focusing inwards on his thoughts, and his face just tended to default to skeezy or depressed when he wasn’t minding it.

“Dean?” Sam prompted after a little bit of silence.

“Adam… He’s not cut out for this life Sammy. He’s… he needs to go back to college when this is all over. Obviously, he can’t do that when we’re officially dead. But I figure that there are some people out there that could get us the good stuff, you know? The kind of IDs that come with backgrounds and school transcripts and stuff.”

Sam swallowed and tried to nod, but he couldn’t quite keep the pain from reaching his eyes.

Dean had said ‘us.’ Sam wasn’t prepared for this. He’d been prepared to be kicked to the curb in favor of the brother who needed more protection, but he wasn’t prepared for, for Dean to be willing to go off and live the civilian life with Adam.

Dean had never… not once had he… but for Adam he was obviously going to, and…

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Sam heard himself blurt out as he slid across the blue vinyl seat. He smacked his knee on the underside of the table as he stood up. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Dean’s untouched water glass slosh liquid onto his placemat from the force of the impact. Sam didn’t turn around though. He didn’t need to see the confusion on Dean’s face, but more than that, he didn’t need Dean to see the distress and outright jealousy on his own.

By the time that he had himself locked securely in the toilet stall, he could feel tears starting to burn at his eyes, and it was fucking pathetic because the last time he’d cried was, was… well when something a lot worse than this was happening. Hell, he hadn’t actually cried when Dean had accused him of being ready to say ‘yes’ to Lucifer. Not even then when he’d had to stare off for a moment to keep the pain at bay and man up.

But it wasn’t fair, damn it all. Dean was supposed to love him. Dean wasn’t supposed to love Adam better. Dean was, fucking hell, Dean was all Sam had, and he’d never once considered moving to Stanford to be close to Sam. And he totally could’ve. Dean had been twenty-two years old at the time. He could’ve shacked up nearby campus, and they could’ve…

“Oh, honey. Men say stupid things sometimes,” a soft, older voice echoed in the bathroom. Sam’s shock at not having heard the main door open was immediately overridden by his horror of having gone into the women’s bathroom by mistake.

Wait.

No.

There had been urinals on the way in. He was sure of it.

Which meant there was an old lady in the men’s bathroom.

It was somehow more terrifying when he thought of it that way.

The stall door he was huddled behind suddenly swung open, and the hostess’s chubby face was smiling up at his own. His face flushed because, really, how else was he supposed to react when faced with an elderly woman while sitting fully clothed on a public toilet?

“He…” Oh. Sam’s father was going to come back from wherever his spirit had dissipated to and kick Sam’s ass for that watery, girly burble. If he didn’t, Sam might do it for him.

“He’s out there right now getting glared at by every waitress I employ, and sucking down sausage links like they’re going out of style.”

Sam figured that she meant that to be reassuring in some way, but that sounded pretty much like a normal breakfast for Dean.

“He’s an ass,” Sam stated decisively, because Dean could at least be munching on his toast first in some sign of penance for willfully breaking his little brother’s heart.

“I don’t doubt that.”

“I think I’m in love with him.” The words horrified Sam for a myriad of reasons, but the one that concerned him the most was that the painful bubble in his chest that was going to make him cry almost completely dissipated when he said the words.

Sam knew his own physiological responses well enough to know that it was a sign that he’d just told the truth.

Fuck.

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “I don’t want him to leave me. I, I want him to stay and be with me. God. I’m sick, and I’m, I’m…”

A soft tutting noise came out of the old lady’s mouth. “Don’t you be saying those things about yourself. You’re a nice young man, and you wouldn’t be the first young person to fall in love with his best friend.”

Sam wanted to point out that she’d never seen him before in her life. He could be a bank robber for all she knew. But he didn’t say a word because he really needed somebody to help him keep it together, and if that help came in the form of an old, hostess-restaurant owner then Sam’s Winchester pride could just learn to live with it.

“Sammy? You gonna come out any time soon? Your gruel is gonna get c… DUDE! Gross!” Dean’s voice sounded horrified. Sam could just about imagine the picture he was seeing with the way that the kindly woman’s body was fitting just inside the bathroom stall.

The old lady didn’t take it too well if the scowl on her face was anything to go by. She spun around with the speed of a woman several generations younger and stormed over to Dean. Sam stumbled out of the stall after her and watched in horrified fascination as she slapped Dean’s face without any preamble.

“You need to treat him better! I’ve never in all my days seen so large a man brought to tears in my restaurant! Not even that witch Maggie Henson and her dear husband Sean who she tortures with her shrewish nagging! And such a fine looking young man too! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

She shoved past Dean and went out of the bathroom.

Dean stared at Sam for a moment. “Tears?” He asked in his mocking, older brother voice.

“Shut up,” Sam muttered tiredly as he shuffled over to the sink. He was way too stressed to deal with whatever it was that Dean was going to say.

“Sammy?”

Sam closed his eyes and tightened his jaw. He just really couldn’t say anything to Dean at the moment. There was no safe way to bring up anything that was bothering him, and they needed to work together until the world ending business was done with.

“It’s ‘Sam,’” he snarled with just enough venom to ensure that it would rankle Dean’s pride.

He heard Dean’s boots scuff on the linoleum of the bathroom floor, but the noises sounded like he was moving closer instead of moving away. It wasn’t what Dean would normally do had he just had a rare attempt at sharing and caring shut down, but Sam refused to open his eyes anyway.

They flew open without his consent when Dean’s warm hands settled right down over his hips. Sam had a vial of holy water on him, but he didn’t think that he could get a devil’s trap inked on the floor before whatever was possessing his brother could shake off the pain from that kind of attack. Besides, they’d gotten those tattoos for a reason, so there shouldn’t be a demon in there anyway.

Dean hadn’t changed his mind again about playing vessel in the middle of a diner in Bumfuck, Nowheresville, had he?

“I can’t believe that prissy little scrap of nothing was right about this,” Dean muttered.

“…” Sam couldn’t say anything. Clearly his mouth was just operating on its own whims today, because he couldn’t even get a good exorcism going.

Dean’s hands slid off Sam’s hips, but that was only because he was wrapping his arms around Sam’s waist to hug him from behind. His whole body pressed up against Sam’s back, and it kind of felt like how Dean spooned, except for the whole standing up part.

They stood there silently for a few minutes as Dean’s heat seeped into Sam, and Sam watched as his own face never lost its shocked expression in the reflection of the mirror over the sink.

Then Sam’s voice decided to start working again with a hearty, “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Dean jerked back, and Sam spun at an angle and stalked back out into the diner. He sat down at the table and began to mechanically shove his breakfast into his mouth. Dean slid in across from him a moment later and began to copy Sam’s food inhaling movements.

They didn’t talk on the way back to the motel. But Dean did yelp when Sam dumped his vial of holy water over his head when he was unlocking the door to their room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So Sam was pretty sure that he hated Adam’s guts. First of all, the little shit had been right about Sam’s weird and repressed feelings. Then he had apparently told Dean about his incest theory. And now Sam’s big brother was going to toss him aside like so much garbage and go off and play normal with the far superior little brother.

Sam was, in fact, livid about the whole thing. He was certain that Dean wouldn’t be running so hard towards normal if Adam hadn’t spilled the beans about the whole incestuous, gay love thing Sam had going on. Fucking little bastard was the one who deserved to have demon blood forcibly dripped into his mouth as a baby. See how it felt to have his whole life ripped out of his hands because his body had one unnatural craving after another.

“Dude, you’re cranky today,” Adam said as he slid into the backseat.

“Shut the fuck up, and don’t call me ‘dude,’” Sam snarled back.

“Okay, Sam,” Adam responded with a weirdly chipper emphasis on him name.

“Don’t call me that either,” Sam said because, well, he was feeling bitchy, and it was better than beating Adam’s face into the ground.

“What do you want me to call you then?” Adam’s voice was satisfactorily wary this time, so Sam felt generous in his response.

“You can call me ‘Bob.’”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So… Bob?” Dean asked when they finally stopped for the night at their new motel.

Sam shrugged and didn’t answer.

“You ever planning on speaking to me again?”

Sam shrugged again because really? No. Anything that came out of his mouth was going to be either a horrifying confession of not-so-brotherly love or a pathetic display of begging Dean not to leave him just because he was a sick, twisted monster on the inside.

“Didn’t we already go through this phase when you were like, ten?”

Same shook his head ‘no’ because Dean knew full well that the not speaking phase happened when Sam was eleven. He was just trying to bait Sam into talking by purposely misstating facts so that Sam would feel the urge to correct him.

“Sammy,” Dean took in what sounded like an exasperated breath, “Sam, would you at least look at me?”

Sam shook his head again.

The door to the motel room slammed open as Adam straggled in with the weapons bag. Sam heard Dean’s frustrated grunt at losing the opportunity to speak without an audience present.

“What do you guys want to eat?” Adam’s voice was overly cheerful, and Sam hoped that he had never sounded like that when he was younger.

“Anything but Thai,” Dean grunted.

Sam just stared at the fugly carpeting in the room and shrugged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five days into Sam’s silence strike, Dean started calling him ‘Shruggsy.’

When Adam tried the same thing, he found out why it was still a good idea to be afraid of Sam’s massive size.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ten days into Sam’s strike, Bobby called. While Sam was pretty certain that Dean had arranged the phone call, he talked to Bobby anyway. Bobby wasn’t making him face the fact that his insides were just plain fucked up beyond all repair, and Dean didn’t love him best anymore.

“Dean tells me something is going on with you,” Bobby started without preamble.

“Yeah.”

“Says you aren’t speaking to him.”

“Yeah.”

“You going to tell me what it’s all about?”

Sam considered dodging the issue, but Bobby was going to find out eventually anyway. He’d really like to just get all the pain over with that he could. The world was ending. If there was ever a time to pile on the angst, pain, and pathos, this was it.

“Turns out that I’m in love with Dean in the hearts and roses kind of way, and he wants to go off to play normal big brother with Adam after the apocalypse is over. I didn’t exactly get an invite for some strange reason, and I’m feeling jealous and resentful.”

There was dead silence on the other end of the line for about five seconds. Sam begrudged Bobby’s recovery abilities sometimes.

“You’re an idjit, and so is your brother.”

“Which one?”

“Take your pick,” Bobby replied easily.

“So you’re not bothered by the gay incest thing?” Sam challenged.

“Bothered, yes. But it ain’t the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Ain’t even the most illegal. Besides all that, I figure I can blame the angels or heaven or whoever for your, your soul mate-y yearning bullshit.”

The thought made Sam kind of feel sick. “You think it’s some sort of destiny?”

Bobby laughed harshly at that. “Sam, did it never occur to you that most fathers give lectures about safe sex and not ones about why incest is wrong?”

“Incest is a leading cause of creating restless spirits among dead children!” Sam sputtered.

“Yeah. Which is just one reason why it’s really, really wrong when a parent or other relative abuses the trust placed into them by a child. Kids don’t have choices. It’s sick and depraved. But Sam, last I checked, you’re an adult. And you’ve had your tongue in nastier places than Dean’s mouth. I hate to say it, but he might just be a step up for you.”

Sam just ended the call right there because, really, he shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of shit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The atmosphere in the Impala was the tensest it had been since the last time that Sam was doing something ill advised and soul damaging. Sam would stop it if he could, but it appeared that falling out of love with Dean was as impossible as being in love with him had seemed back when Adam had first suggested the notion.

It wasn’t Sam’s fault. He was trying hard to stop it. Barring that, he was going to do his best to bury the feeling down as far as he could. Hell, he would never even have known about it if Adam hadn’t been there with his pestering questions and comments. Shoving that wrong kind of love back in its box shouldn’t be too hard. It wasn’t like his unnatural affection was all that obvious.

Sure, there were the fans of Chuck’s books that thought it, but Sam had always just taken Dean’s stance on the issue. Dean liked to think that Chuck skewed the way things were to sell more books like news reporters do when they’re trying to sell a story. Tell the absolute truth, but emphasize anything that might make the information more salacious. Sam hadn’t seen the creepy, brother love undertones that Chuck was writing in when he’d read through the books that they could find, but then again his reading was heavily influenced by his own memories of the events.

And yeah, they had been confused for gay partners more times than Sam liked to admit, but those were always strangers. There were never people that knew Sam telling him that he was carrying around a torch for Dean. Not even Becky said it once she actually knew them, and she was still a crazy fan.

Since his silent, not confession of love, Sam made sure to go out for a run as soon as they book the latest motel room each night. He jogged for unnecessary miles to ensure that his brothers were gone by the time he returned. Listening to them talk to each other was just as painful as it was before he realized why it was that he was so jealous of their growing relationship - more painful even because Sam now owned a great big heap of guilt and self loathing to go with his jealousy and pining.

One particular night, a rain storm cut his run short. Sam didn’t want to return and see the twins having themselves some brother time, but getting soaked to the bone sounded worse. Fortune smiled on him. The Impala wasn’t in the parking lot when he came back. He breathed a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t have to silently sit through another meal with Dean and Dean’s Real Brother. Then he took the sigh back because he realized that his body wasn’t going to fall into exhausted slumber at the end of the night without the benefit of his normal marathon.

When Sam cracked the motel room door open, a flicker of movement that wasn’t just his shadow flickers out of the corner of his eye. His knife was resting in the palm of his hand before he realized that the shadow was Dean.

“Well, I’m glad to know that your reflexes still work even if your brain isn’t all there.” Dean’s comment wasn’t all that nice, but Sam figured that he deserved it for the whole silence thing he had been perpetuating.

A halfhearted shrug was all the response that he gave to Dean’s barb as he put his knife back in its sheath.

Dean grunted and threw a towel at him. “Go take a shower and warm up.”

Sam couldn’t argue with the order because it was a good idea, and arguing about it might would cause words to be spoken. He stalked to the bathroom without giving Dean a second glance. He successfully ignored his brother’s rudeness when Dean barged into the bathroom in the middle of Sam’s shower to leave a stack of dry clothes.

When Sam stumbled back into the motel room, he was faced with the sight of two place settings on the small table in the room. Real place settings with silverware and plates and everything were surrounded by Chinese takeout boxes and beer bottles. There was also a candle flickering in the middle of the table. Not one of the ones that they kept around for banishing and cleansing rituals, but a simple, tapered white one.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice cracked a little on the word, but he hadn’t been using his voice to do anything beyond order at a restaurant for a while now.

“Wow. You can talk.” Dean’s sarcasm was laced with affection and no small amount of pride.

Sam figured the pride had more to do with the fact that Dean had gotten him to say something more than it did Sam’s actual vocal abilities.

“What is all…” Sam stopped in the middle of his question, because what it all was, was clearly an attempt to shock Sam’s abnormal brain back into the real world. Give him what he thought he wanted so that he can see how wrong it was.

“It’s dinner. Just the two of us, and you’d better appreciate it because I had to give Adam the keys to the Impala, and I don’t trust his driving,” Dean replied, oblivious to Sam’s thoughts.

“You don’t have to do this,” Sam said softly, guilt and desire for what Dean was offering him warring in his guts.

“Yeah? Actually, I kind of do, because the tension is just about killing me here.”

“This isn’t… I can’t make it go away. I know that isn’t what you want to hear. Hell, man, it isn’t even what I want to know about myself. The best I can do is acknowledge it and try to keep it from interfering with our lives.”

“You’re doing a great job with that,” Dean sounded distinctly unimpressed with Sam’s efforts.

“Sorry.”

“So I think that you should listen to me and park your ass down in that chair and have dinner.”

“Dean,” Sam tried to put as much stress on the word as he could. He just, he could not allow himself to sit down at that table and have a taste of everything he wanted when all he’s going to do is crave it more.

“Sit. Eat. Make googly eyes at me because I’m pretty, and you know it.”

“Dean!”

“Dude, seriously, not an amnesiac over here. I know my own name.”

“You can’t… I… You hate me!”

“Wow. Really? Because I’m pretty sure that I just want in your pants.”

Sam didn’t respond to that. He just snagged his duffle bag off the floor and started rifling through it for his crucifix.

“I’m not possessed, Sammy. And I’ve got inner and outer tattoos to prove it. Come on, man, I’m not good at the caring and sharing and the, the girly stuff here,” Dean said as his hand curled around Sam’s arm, gently tugging at it.

Sam pulled his arm out of Dean’s grip and started digging more furiously through his bag. Dean grunted, tore the bag out of Sam’s hands, and threw it on the floor. When Sam turned to go after his bag, Dean stepped into his way, and it was obvious that they were about to have one of their famous physical confrontations.

Sam took the offensive and kicked out at Dean’s left foot. Dean lifted his foot out of the path of Sam’s and lunged upwards. Sam flinched backwards and turned his head slightly to the side to change the impact of the punch that he knew was sure to follow Dean’s movement.

When Dean’s hand wrapped around the back of Sam’s skull, Sam belatedly remembered that Dean was not above head butting when he felt the situation called for it, even if there was a chance that it would make him directly responsible for breaking his own nose.

Trying to lessen the impact of the impending attack, Sam leaned his head forward and felt a pair of lips slide up against his own. He opened his mouth to ask just what was going on, but he found it filled up with Dean’s tongue instead. Sam stumbled forward a bit in shock, and felt Dean’s other hand slid around his waist to steady him.

Evidently, instead of smacking Sam around, Dean was trying to make out with him. In fact, if Sam wasn’t very much mistaken, Dean’s pelvis was starting to do a little grinding. It was freaky, and kind of hot. Sam was kind of hot. Dean was, God, Dean was hot and firm and Sam really didn’t know how both of his hands had gotten down on Dean’s ass.

It was a nice ass too. Perfect for squeezing and rubbing and general all purpose fondling. Sam’s hands liked it very much.

“Always knew you were an ass man, Sammy. All that talk about peoples insides was just a big, fat lie,” Dean mumbled against his lips.

“Dean,” Sam whispered as he pulled his face away to look into his brother’s eyes. The eyes in question were closed and quickly hidden from sight when Dean ducked his head to hide it against Sam’s neck.

“Please?” Dean’s voice was whisper soft and just not his normal anything.

Sam shook his head ‘no,’ and even though he knew Dean couldn’t see him, he knew that Dean could feel the motion. In a split second, Dean’s body went from timid and gentle to coiled and angry as he literally shoved against Sam’s chest to get away.

“Why not, huh? I’m supposed to spend the rest of my goddamn life alone? Is that it? I’m not good enough for you?” he snarled and spat the words out, but Sam didn’t rise to the challenge.

“You aren’t doing this for you. You’re doing it for me, and I won’t let you do that. Not this time.”

“Same difference,” was Dean’s dismissive reply.

“No, no it isn’t. I’m not… you’re not responsible for me anymore. Okay? You’ve got a second chance handed to you on a silver platter out there, and as twisted as my love for you is, I’m not going to let you sacrifice your life for me again.”

“Like hell you’re not my responsibility! Damn it Sam! You will always be my responsibility! You are always going to be a part of me, and I’m always going to want what you want! Do you think that I’m any less, less screwed in the head than you are? You’re a part of me. I can’t change that, and I don’t want to change that. I think that we’ve proven pretty well that ‘that’ doesn’t work!”

“You’re angry, and you’re not making any sense,” Sam spoke softly more in an effort to keep himself calm than his brother.

“We don’t work apart. Fuck, every time I’m away from you it just feels wrong. Sometimes I think Hell was so bad just because I wasn’t with you. Does that sound like I’m not in this with you?”

“I…”

“Sammy, please. I won’t do this without you.”

“Strictly speaking, there isn’t a way you could.”

“Don’t be a smart ass. I’m serious here.”

Sam ran his fingers through his still short hair and shook his head. “It’ll kill you.”

“It is killing me now.” Dean corrected.

“Then you see why this is a bad idea.”

“No. What I see is that I can’t stand the thought of not being with you forever. It hurts me when you don’t want to be with me. I can’t break a lifelong habit of loving you the way that I do. I won’t. I don’t even want to try, because trying just makes me miserable. So really, if you want to do your big brother a favor, you park your ass down in that chair over there and make eyes at me over the damn fried rice.”

Dean stomped over to his chair yanked open a container, pulling at the cardboard box so hard that the lid ripped away more than it opened. The tips of his ears were red. Dean, Sam realized, was embarrassed.

Not that Sam blamed him for that. Talking about his big, introspective feelings wasn’t something that Dean did, especially not in long, drawn out sentences. Plus Sam had kind of shot him down, and Dean didn’t do that well with rejection. That didn’t mean that he was going to go easy on the guy though. He was still a little brother.

“That has got to be the worst dinner invitation I’ve ever gotten. ‘Park your ass down in that chair’? You get dates with that line?”

“Blow me,” Dean snapped.

“Not on the first date,” Sam quipped without thinking. Then it was his turn to blush, because, well…

Dean’s eyes unglued themselves from watching his plate where he’d been making a horrifying mixture of glop from the foods he’d placed there.

Sam gave him a tiny smile.

Dean grinned back and started shoveling his Chinese goo into his mouth.

Sam figured he was doomed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam was unbearable. Once he found out the news, he spent his time either crowing about how awesome it was or conveniently disappearing so that Sam and Dean could, “Be alone.”

Dean was Dean. The only thing that seemed to be on single track that made up his mind was sex. He didn’t understand Sam’s reluctance to just do it. “What? We need to get to know each other better first? I love you. You love me, and we’re both unbearably hot. We need to get it on before our dicks implode,” was his exact quote.

Sam had tried bringing up the whole incest thing, but it seemed that his entire family was completely unconcerned with it. It wasn’t an unfamiliar circumstance to be in. Back in the day he was always the one complaining about credit fraud, hustling and illegal entry.

It was unfair because he was the freak with the messed up blood. He shouldn’t be the one trying to talk Dean out of their epic love. He should be the one trying to seduce that tight little ass into bed.

Sam blew a breath out of his lips and tried to focus on the night sky as it blurred by outside the Impala’s windows. Okay, he really needed to quit thinking about Dean’s ass and mouth and dick and the way that his voice just kind of rumbled around in his chest when he was speaking and those big, firm muscles and…

“Thinking about me?” Dean’s not-attractive-at-all voice purred in Sam’s ear.

“What? No!” Sam protested.

“Yeah, right,” Dean said as they passed under a street lamp that illuminated his smirk.

“I wasn’t!”

“You keep telling yourself that, Sammy.”

“Last I checked you couldn’t read minds,” Sam hissed.

“Last I checked you weren’t in the habit of popping boners in the car, but if the glare of oncoming headlights is suddenly a turn on for you, I should probably know about it. Wouldn’t want to let you drive at night in case you start getting all hot and bothered by it.”

“Oh, God, it’s genetic. This is the reason I didn’t get laid until my second semester in college,” Adam groaned from the backseat.

Dean’s eyebrows flew up, and Sam figured his did as well.

“College? Even Sammy got laid by the time that he was seventeen.”

“Hey!” Sam protested. “The key to my pants? That is so not it.”

“I’m going to pretend I’m not hearing this conversation,” Adam complained.

“Well, tough, because you are the reason that we’re having this conversation in the first place,” Sam reminded him.

“I only pointed out the very obvious love connection you had going on. I’m a freaking cupid. You should be thanking me.”

“Actually, I’ve met a cupid, and you’re really not it,” Dean told him.

“Can we just not talk about cupids? Because I like to pretend that whole hunt just didn’t happen,” Sam mumbled.

Dean’s face softened, but the infrequent lighting didn’t give Sam enough information to tell whether it was because of pain or guilt or anything else. “It’s okay, Sammy.” Dean’s voice was choked up, and his free hand patted clumsily at Sam’s thigh.

Adam seemed to pick up on the change in mood as he kept quiet as they continued driving.

After a few moments, Dean’s hand still hadn’t removed itself from Sam’s thigh. A few more moments, and it started petting instead of patting.

“Dean! Seriously? In the car?”

“I can’t help it!”

“God, somebody shoot me!” Adam whined.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re trying to kill me,” Dean whined as Sam firmly removed Dean’s hand from the path it was making towards Sam’s crotch.

“Shhh. Go to sleep.”

“Sam, listen to you older brother. Blue balls can kill.”

“Dean.”

“Those fancy people at Stanford were just lying to you to keep the women’s groups off their backs. I’m not kidding.”

“Is this your idea of foreplay? Because I’m amazed you’re not a virgin. No, wait. You are, aren’t you? You’ve just been faking it all these years.”

“Aww, Sammy, you know you love me and want to have my babies.”

“I’m not having sex with you while our brother is in the bed next to us.”

“I wasn’t looking for sex, just a little making out and maybe an undercover hand job.”

“That is sex.”

“It is not. The President said so.”

Sam refused to open his eyes so that he could roll them at his brother. He was going to go to sleep whether Dean liked it or not. Dean seemed to take Sam’s stubborn silence as some sort of permission as his hand started creeping south again.

“Dean. No.”

“Fine. Don’t blame me if you get a wet backside because I’ve been reduced to wet dreams.”

“You’re so gross.”

Dean huffed against Sam’s neck and threw a leg over his hip, but he quit trying to fondle and grind, so Sam didn’t say anything. Ten minutes later, the body pressed so tightly against him relaxed its grip as Dean drifted off. When Sam finally followed suit, he wasn’t surprised that his dreams involved an overly amorous Dean trying to get into his pants with a crowbar and a machete. He figured that it said something about his life that it wasn’t nearly the strangest dream that he’d ever had, and he wasn’t the least bit disturbed by it.

Dean had moved on to attempting to remove Sam’s belt with a contraption made of toothpicks and pizza crusts when Lucifer decided to pop up. He watched for a while, like the sick voyeur he was, before finally saying, “I can stop him, you know. Stop him from hurting and abusing you.”

“How about you just get out of my dreams instead?” Sam suggested as dream Dean vanished into thin air.

“I realize that I was wrong before. Your dreams were about trying to get away from Dean, from what he’s been subtly pushing you towards all these years. You don’t want this, but you know that he does. You knew deep inside that he’s been cultivating you towards this unhealthy relationship your entire…”

“Okay, listen up! Nobody gets to talk about my brother that way. Also? Freaking NO. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No….”

“N…” Sam jerked awake with a snort. Behind him, Dean pressed closer, responsive to Sam’s distress even in his sleep. Sam pulled one of Dean’s hands up to his mouth and gave it a gentle kiss. If Dean were awake, he’d protest the softness of the gesture. But he wasn’t, so Sam gave it a second peck before tucking it against his own chest and trying to fall back to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dean took to sitting next to Sam when they went out to eat. It was disturbing because most of their adult life, they’d taken opposite sides of the table. It was what equals and partners were supposed to do. It was what couples on dates were supposed to do as well, but Dean must’ve missed the whole dating scenario and moved straight to wherever it was that Dean’s head went about them. Sam wasn’t really sure what Dean thought was supposed to happen besides sex.

Sam wasn’t sure that he necessarily wanted to give Dean sex because, well… there was still the whole matter of Dean wanting to ditch it all and go live the normal life. The last time that Sam had checked, normal life still wasn’t living with your gay lover and that was before adding in the extra problem of their genetic relationship.

Assuming, of course, that Sam was going to get an invitation to the party. There was the possibility that once they finished with stopping the inevitable, Dean was going to break up with him. It wasn’t that Sam thought that Dean was stringing him along. It was just that Adam was the one who Dean had apparently discussed having a future with.

Given that Dean was trying to get into Sam’s pants, Sam felt that not having that same discussion with him was more than a fair reason to keep Dean’s wandering hands out of said trousers. Even if he really wanted those hands in his pants because, damn. Dean’s hands might not be as big as Sam’s but they were certainly bigger than any woman’s that Sam had ever been with. And they were calloused in all the right places to make Sam wonder about how good it would feel to have those little hard yet not ridges rub against the sensitive skin of his cock.

“Dude,” Dean whispered in a strangled voice next to him.

Sam winced and automatically reached to pass the salt. It wasn’t the first time that he’d zoned out on a conversation because Adam and Dean were discussing something in their non-nerdy, Dean world language.

When he handed the salt over though, Dean didn’t reach for it. Dean, it turned out, probably didn’t even know that the salt had been passed to him because he wasn’t staring at the table top. He was staring at Sam’s lap.

And yeah, thinking about Dean’s hands had given him a stiffy. So what? It happened. It wasn’t like it wouldn’t be gone by the time the Wonder Twins finished licking the syrup off their breakfast plates.

It would be nice if Dean quit staring at it though.

“What?” Adam piped up from the other side of the table.

Sam just kind of wanted to hit him for that, because really? A dude is staring at another dude’s lap and you have to ask?

Dean’s nearest hand ghosted across the top of Sam’s thigh to cup gently at the bulge making itself known in the now snugly fitting denim.

Sam’s eyes crossed, and his knee slammed into the underside of the table causing his mostly full glass of grapefruit juice to slosh some of its contents onto his placemat. His hand clamped down firmly on Dean’s wrist and forcefully returned it to its owner’s lap.

“In a restaurant? Seriously, Dean?” he hissed.

“I thought maybe you had a thing for them,” Dean snapped back as his face turned red, and he viciously stabbed at his eggs.

Adam was just staring at them like they were a particularly fascinating football game -which was kind of saying a lot given how passionate he seemed to be about the sport. It also said something about how obvious his lineage was if he wasn’t freaking out about his eldest brother trying to cop a feel of his other older brother’s cock in a restaurant during Sunday brunch.

“What? It’s like Fort Knox down there,” Dean growled defensively.

Sam just felt like hitting his head against the table when Adam nodded knowingly.

“I. Am. Right. Here. If the two of you want to discuss me and all of my little failings when you’re out being superior, then fine. But at least have the decency to pretend to be civil to me when I’m actually with you,” Sam huffed and took a swig of what was left of his juice.

Dean frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

Sam bit into his cold and not well buttered toast, put on his most annoyed face, and refused to answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Talking to Dean was obviously something that needed to be done as soon as possible. Not because Sam was going to have a discussion about their relationship, because he wasn’t. But the every other night visitations from Lucifer in his dreams were getting to be a bit much.

Lucifer was spending a lot of time trying to convince him that Dean was warping him at some fundamental level. Sam’s childhood had been bad enough the first time around. He really didn’t need the Devil trying to convince him that both John and Dean Winchester had been grooming him for some sick, incestuous role.

Granted, he seemed to have fallen in love with his own brother, and the cause for that was probably tied to their highly unconventional and painful past. But Sam was still certain that it wasn’t something intentional on Dean’s part.

While Dean had on occasion purposely hurt Sam, it was never out of some malicious intent. Most of the time it was because Dean thought it would benefit Sam in the long run. Save him. Help him. Or sometimes it was just plain that Sam had hurt Dean first, and Dean wanted a little payback.

The idea of their dad raising either of them towards it on purpose was laughable. Still, the brain is the devil’s playground, and Sam’s memories weren’t that difficult to twist to appear different than they had actually been. So talking to Dean about it was an absolute must. Talking to Adam about it was an absolute not.

Sam would cut his own tongue out before he even discussed it in front of Bobby. Blood or not, Adam wasn’t anywhere near the family that Bobby was - which is why Sam not so subtly arranged for Adam to be gone for the day.

It was sort of strange how complacent both Adam and Dean were when Sam suggested that Adam make the supply run to the neighboring town alone. The hunt they were on hadn’t been one of their preplanned apocalypse stopping ones, but it had literally popped up on them as they were driving into town to rent a motel room for the night. After researching and talking to the locals, they figured out that the slimy and oddly transparent thing that had attacked the car was easy enough to kill if they had the right herbs.

Of course, the small town didn’t exactly have the herbs that they needed being a wholesome community and not taking with that pagan, new age-y malarkey. Thankfully Swamp Thing, as both Dean and Mini-Dean had taken to calling the creature, only appeared on misty, rainy nights, so they had the time to travel and get supplies.

Sam had thought that it was going to take a lot of persuading. First of all, they were sending Adam off with no more protection than some guns and knives and talismans. Secondly of all, they were sending Adam off with the Impala: Dean’s baby. Sam had at least been expecting tears of anxiety.

He had planned out a whole speech about how they needed to allow Adam to grow. How it wasn’t fair to smother him with protectiveness. How Adam wasn’t Sam, and he wouldn’t secretly get off on knowing his big, strong brother was just looking out for him with his asshole ways. Admittedly, the last argument was embellished a touch to play to Dean’s ego.

Embarrassingly, none of Sam’s arguments were needed. Not that Sam had been looking forward to playing those card, but it was still mortifying that he had even thought up the lines in the first place. As much as Sam would like to say that they were just created to persuade Dean, there was a small part of him that was kind of turned on by Dean’s possessive protectiveness. He hated that part of himself.

Dean handed Sam the keys when Adam was ready to leave. When Sam arched a questioning eyebrow in Dean’s direction, all he received was a shrug and a shy smile. Dean’s eyes darted nervously to the motel room door, and Sam couldn’t find it in his heart to tease Dean about his potentially unhealthy love for his car. After all, Dean didn’t need his non-traditional love choices mocked. Not by the man who was supposed to love him back in a dubious way.

Adam smirked the whole way out to the car and kept nudging Sam with his elbow when they said their farewells. Adam swore that he’d take good care of the car and looked offended when Sam brought up how upset Dean would be if something happened to her.

An irate and almost devoted, “I learned to drive behind her wheel!” was all that Adam offered in response. It seemed that Sam had once again missed out on an important Winchester quality. The trait of car lust had just passed him by.

The reflection of light off the newly shined bumper of the Impala was a memory for several minutes before Sam squared his shoulders and headed back to the room. He wasn’t looking forward to talking to Dean. It wasn’t going to be pretty once the beans were spilled about just how long the visitations had been happening, but Sam felt reasonably assured that it wasn’t going to drive Dean to go call prophet-assistance to ring up an angel looking for a healthy vessel.

Dean was stretched out on one of the beds when Sam finally worked up the courage to go through the door. What Dean wasn’t doing was catching a nap or watching the cheap television and crappy basic cable that the motel provided. What he was doing was lounging provocatively in nothing but a pair of new, black boxer-briefs. The dark material hid some things from view, but it wasn’t enough to obscure the fact that Dean had quite a bit more on display than he normally did. Sam had been seeing Dean parade around in various states of undress for years. He knew soft from hard.

Dean was definitely working towards hard. Not there yet, not quite. Maybe halfway if the shadows weren’t obscuring more than he figured. Dean had more room to grow.

In retrospect, the general size and shape of one’s brother’s erections might be something that a sibling shouldn’t know. Of course if Sam was going to indulge in a bit of hindsight, he should have realized that his ruse to get Adam out of their hair was going to be seen as an attempt to get a different type of alone time than he was actually angling for.

“Dean,” Sam would’ve been embarrassed at how breathy his voice sounded, but his dick was interested in what Dean’s dick was doing. He could be excused for being a little turned on by the sight before his eyes.

“Almost thought you didn’t want to be with me,” Dean purred as he pushed himself off the bed and strode over to where Sam had stopped in his tracks.

“I…” Sam opened his mouth only to have Dean’s cover it. The kiss was sloppy and wet and by the time that Dean let up on his assault, Sam had managed to lose his belt, his jacket and his flannel shirt. He remembered unbuckling the belt, but the missing outer layers were a mystery.

“You are so fucking hot.” Dean moaned as he leaned up to bite at Sam’s jaw and rub his now fully erect cock against Sam’s belly, the material of his underwear catching and tugging against Sam’s thin shirt.

Sam froze for a moment in indecision. On the one hand, they really, really needed to talk. That was a fact. On the other hand, Dean was not going to be pleased if Sam interrupted their ‘happy time’ to have a long overdue discussion about his evil, stalking angel. On another hand, if Sam were an abnormal, three-handed creature, Sam still was uncertain about Dean’s plans for after the apocalypse. Sexing it up was only going to complicate matters.

Perhaps the most important part was that Sam’s own cock was starting to throb, and Dean felt really good. And Dean’s sinful mouth was doing dirty things to Sam’s neck. And Sam hadn’t gotten laid in ages, and Dean was purportedly really good at sex. And…

“Oh, Dean,” Sam groaned when Dean’s mouth started suckling on his Adam’s apple, nipping at it gently.

Sam could feel Dean’s smile form against the tender skin of his neck – smug fucker. Dean’s hands slid over the tee shirt that was still covering Sam’s torso down to the button of his jeans. “I want to see you naked for me,” he growled as he tugged at the material.

Sam whimpered, and his hands scrabbled to get his shirt off while Dean conquered the zipper and shoved Sam’s jeans down his legs. They both let out a grunt of frustration when Sam tried to kick out of his pants only to have their path impeded by his boots.

Dean wasted no time in dropping to his knees to yank at the laces. His face looked like he wanted to cut them to shreds with his favorite knife, and Sam was just really glad that Dean didn’t have anywhere that he could be hiding one. Bootlaces were a bitch to buy. Replacements were always too long or too short, and the lack of dirt on them always made it really obvious that they weren’t the originals.

The instant that the laces were undone, Sam stepped back to struggle out of them. It wasn’t the sexiest move that he’d ever performed, but he didn’t think that it was going to reduce his chances of getting laid. Dean was still staring at him with fervent lust from his position on the floor.

Sam moved forward again to help Dean up, but instead of taking Sam’s offered hand of assistance, Dean put his hands against Sam’s thighs. He curled his fingers slightly, and Sam let his hand fall awkwardly back to his side.

After staring at Sam’s rather boring, regular white boxer shorts for a few seconds, Dean leaned forward to kiss a scar on Sam’s right knee. It was a surprisingly tender gesture. Like many of Sam’s scars, Dean had been there the day that he had gotten it. Unlike most of them though, the scar had happened the day that Dean had taught Sam how to ride a bike.

They’d never had the luxury of having a bike with training wheels. Never really had the luxury of having a bike either, but Sam had wanted to learn so badly. He’d seen the other kids in whatever neighborhood that they’d landed in riding around on their shiny red and blue bicycles, and he’d wanted to be zooming around faster than the wind with them.

He’d never asked their dad about it, but he’d asked Dean. The next day, Dean had come home filthier than all get out, dragging a rusty and bent little two wheeler beside him. In retrospect, it was probably Dean’s first repair job.

All that thoughtfulness and Dean had still felt guilty for days when Sam couldn’t stay upright and banged up his knee on the gravel road. They hadn’t gotten all of the dirt out of the wound, and it had become infected. Sam remembered it hurting more because of the pain it caused Dean than the physical symptoms of the injury itself.

“Sap,” Sam whispered softly as he ran his fingers through Dean’s hair.

Dean responded by moving to mouth the inside of Sam’s thigh nosing upwards slowly, leaving a trail of wet licks as he moved. His face started to encounter the hem of Sam’s shorts, but he kept going for a while anyway, bunching the material up as he made his journey.

When the fabric amassed enough wrinkles to keep him from going any farther, he bit down on the soft skin that he’d been tasting. The pain startled Sam, but when he breathed in and tried to figure out a way to delicately get his skin out from between Dean’s teeth, his brother released the flesh and gave it a soothing kiss. It figured that even horny Dean would know the sound of his Sammy in pain.

“Dean, uh biting isn’t really one of my kinks,” Sam blurted out.

Dean leaned back on his heels and raised a disbelieving set of eyebrows at him.

Sam squirmed, “Well, you know, getting bitten.”

Dean snorted and rose smoothly to his feet without assistance. “Wasn’t for you,” he said without apology right before he hooked his thumbs into his waistband and pulled his underwear out over his dick and off his body.

Dean’s cock slapped up against his abdomen, obviously excited at being freed. It was long and thick and angry red in color. Wetness was gathering at its tip, and the head was staring to purple. It looked painful.

Sam’s own dick twitched in sympathy and arousal, and before he made the conscious decision to do so, he yanked his own boxers off his body.

They stared at each other. Sam would have been intimidated by the lust that he saw in Dean’s eyes, but he was much too busy indulging in his own ogling. One minute they were playing centerfold for each other, the next Dean was tackling Sam onto the nearest bed.

It creaked as they impacted on its lumpy surface, but the supports held, and that was all that mattered. Dean’s skin was like a moving furnace against Sam. His lips seemed to be everywhere at once, and his hands were faster at palming over Sam’s muscles than they were when he was lifting a man’s wallet.

When the wandering hands grabbed at Sam’s thighs and pushed, there wasn’t a second of hesitation before he complied. If he couldn’t trust Dean, there wasn’t a person alive that he could trust. Maybe it was just his blind faith in his brother talking, but that faith had been proven reliable in every other area of their lives. Even when Sam was the only one crazy enough to believe in Dean, it had been the right call.

As Dean settled between his thighs, it became apparent that Sam’s instinctive decision was the right one. The heat and friction between them was intoxicating. A flash of pleasure shot along Sam’s nerve endings when their cocks rubbed together. His hips snapped upwards trying to increase the sensation, and he was rewarded with a moan from Dean.

“Sammy,” Dean whimpered against the skin he was kissing.

Sam let his fingers stroke along Dean’s back, feeling the muscles tense and flex as his brother moved to places his kisses. The farther down Sam’s body that Dean traveled, the heavier and more encouraging Sam’s own touches became. He wasn’t blind, and he certainly wasn’t immune to the power of Dean’s sexuality.

“Wanna fuck you so bad,” Dean confessed as he nipped at Sam’s hipbones.

Sam froze at that proclamation. They needed to be talking and not fucking. At least they shouldn’t fuck until they had discussed both Lucifer and their relationship in a calm and orderly fashion. Or, being Winchesters, they had yelled and hit things and totally avoided the majority of anything resembling a true conversation.

“Or not,” Dean mumbled as he pulled back from his position over Sam’s groin and looked up at his face.

“I just… maybe we can wait on the, umm, fucking? Until, you know…” Sam trailed off as Dean shot him a grin.

“Oh, you are adorable when you stutter.”

“Fuck you,” Sam shot back instinctively, because he was still Dean’s little brother, and he wasn’t going to put up with being teased.

“Apparently not happening,” Dean said as he climbed up from his position and flopped down on the bed next to Sam. “So tell me what it is that you need to discuss with me that is keeping us from getting laid. Because my balls are turning blue, and if mine are, I’d hate to see what yours look like.”

“Lucifer,” Sam blurted out.

Dean groaned and flopped back against the bedspread. “I can’t believe that you finally arrange some alone time for us, and your brain interrupts our coitus with the apocalypse.”

Sam wanted to point out that his original plan wasn’t getting laid, but he figured that Dean wouldn’t appreciate the information, so he went with his second instinct. “Coitus? Really, Dean?”

“My vocabulary turns you on, and you know it. Have to keep up with the college boys somehow. Now tell me what the Devil has to do with our sex life.”

Sam took a deep breath, readied himself, and told Dean.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adam’s presence had never inspired so much joy in anybody. At least, Sam was fairly certain it hadn’t. He’d been an oops on John Winchester’s part, and given what Sam knew, he hadn’t been planned on his mother’s side either.

His arrival at the motel room though? It caused Sam to hear angels singing. At least, it would have if he hadn’t known several angels that wanted to either vaporize him or offer his meat suit up on a silver platter to the ruler of Hell.

In any case, Adam’s return broke the very chilly attitude that Dean had started to cop once Sam got the story out about Lucifer visiting his dreams. They hadn’t even gotten to the whole discussion of their future because Dean had just shut down and refused to say anything. It was unpleasant, but not necessarily surprising.

“Those do not look like happy, orgasm faces,” Adam stated.

Sam kind of wanted to punch him because, yeah, even Dean had more tact than that. Stupid little brother.

Dean snorted but didn’t say anything.

Adam looked over at Sam inquiringly.

“What?” Sam bit out defensively.

“Nothing it’s just… there are drugs that can help? I know that you’re both still young, but this demon and angel stuff is pretty heavy. There’s no shame in admitting that you need help. It’s perfectly normal to suffer from occasional erectile dysfunction especially with the mostly unhealthy lifestyle that you lead with the constant driving and the fast food and the…”

“Please, please stop. Like, now. Before you give Dean a heart attack,” Sam said as he covered Adam’s mouth with his hand.

Adam swatted the hand away. “People like you are why medical science is so far behind. You have to acknowledge the problem and seek help if we are ever to find cures.”

“If you can find a cure for your brother’s stupid head, then go for it, buddy. I sure haven’t ever been able to figure him out.” Dean’s bitter words looked liked they surprised Adam. To Sam, they were sort of encouraging. Dean normally didn’t snap out of his funk so quickly unless actual death was imminent.

“You two had a fight? Like an honest to God, let’s stop having sex and get all pissy with each other fight? In three hours?” Adam’s gaze flitted back and forth between his two older brothers, his face showing what he thought about the idea.

“There’s more to life than sex,” Sam protested.

“Technically, there isn’t. Before modern medicine made it possible…”

“Dude, not the time for your philosophical debates on whatever geekery you’ve got going on,” Dean’s voice was harsh as he spoke, and even though he was talking, he was avoiding even looking in Sam’s direction.

Adam, curse his intelligence, noticed. “What did you do to him?” he asked as he turned accusing eyes on Sam.

“Nothing!”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Dean muttered not-so-under his breath.

Sam shot him an exasperated look before turning back to his younger brother. “I just had to discuss something important with him.”

Adam frowned. “Wait, so this wasn’t a booty call? You were just trying to get me out of the way?”

“Yes! No! Nobody is trying to get you out of the way. Not me, not Dean, not anybody. Okay? I just don’t feel comfortable discussing certain private things with people that aren’t Dean.”

Dean snorted again, and Sam half expected Adam to join him in his funk. Instead his little brother tilted his head to one side, then the other. Finally he opened his mouth and said, “I guess I can see that. Despite the circumstances, we don’t know each other as well as we probably should, and I don’t have the history with you that Dean does.”

The response was… oddly logical and rational. Sam wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to that.

“We’re good then?” he hesitantly asked.

“Yeah, sure. I’m not going to hold a grudge when I shouldn’t even be insulted,” Adam replied casually as he walked over to flop down on the bed that Dean wasn’t sitting on.

Dean stood up and stalked out the door without saying another word. The Impala roared as he gunned her to life, and Sam resigned himself to listening to Metallica for at least three days.

“You want me to sleep on the couch tonight?” Adam offered.

“No. You shouldn’t suffer just because Dean and I are fighting.”

“Suit yourself, man. I’m not the one whose dick is going to freeze off when the Ice King returns.”

Sam didn’t reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coming back drunk and passing out was what Sam expected Dean to do. The Impala had returned to its parking spot outside the motel not fifty minutes after Dean had left. He hadn’t gone to a bar. He’d gone to the liquor store.

Sam had gone to bed once it had become apparent that Dean was going to drink himself into a stupor in the dubious comfort of the front seat of his car. He’d hoped that Dean had worked past his need to impulsively drink once he got back on the ‘No Train,’ but that had obviously been the in vain kind of hope.

Of course, Dean had never liked to be entirely predictable, even though he totally was in all areas that counted. So around three in the morning, Sam woke up to Dean’s liquored up form slamming down on the floor next to Sam’s bed.

“Dean?” Sam asked as he automatically grabbed his pistol and a pillow to shove under his comatose brother’s head.

It was just his luck that Dean was drunk as a skunk, but not unconscious. Instead of lying on the floor in a puddle of whiskey and drool, he was kneeling, leaning against the side of bed. His eyes were glassy and swimming as they tried to focus on Sam. He was also crying.

“‘M sorry,” he blubbered out as soon as Sam rolled over to turn on the light.

“Okay, good,” Sam replied with false enthusiasm because, seriously, he was still alive. This was not an authorized moment for Dean tears.

“ I dinna, mean ta… I goota, you needa frgive me,” Dean sobbed.

“For what? Doing a bad drunken Scotsman impersonation?” Sam asked lightly as he rolled out of bed so that he could pull Dean up onto it.

“I’m bad, bad, bad,” Dean whispered like it was a confession.

“To the bone,” Sam agreed easily, “now let’s get you on the bed so you’re comfortable when your head is trying to kill you tomorrow.”

“Sam?” Adam asked from his own bed. His voice was muzzy, and Sam resisted the urge to lecture him about awareness ala John Winchester. If the kid didn’t learn to sleep a little lighter, they were going to find him stabbed through in a pile of bloody sheets someday.

“Dean’s drunk. Ignore him, or he’ll take it out on you tomorrow,” Sam told him.

That just made Adam wake up more and look over at the pathetic mess that was his eldest brother. “I’ll go get some soda out of the vending machine. He’s going to want it when he’s puking his guts up later.”

Sam lifted and eyebrow at Adam as he rolled out of bed.

“What? I did have teenage friends who had illegal parties, you know,” Adam defended as he shoved his shoes on his feet and walked out the door.

“Should go w’th him. Take the car,” Dean advised.

“To get you soda?” Sam asked as he started unlacing Dean’s boots.

“Get away from me. Bad for you. Evil,” Dean stated.

“Yes, I can see how trying to save the world makes you a bad person.”

“No, Sammy. Not funny.” Dean started struggling as irritation seeped into his tone.

Sam jerked away as Dean’s flailing caused his feet to jerk. “Dean, really, you need to calm down here.”

“No, get away. Far, far away where I can’t hurt you, where I can’t force you to…” Dean swallowed thickly and looked away.

Sam tugged Dean’s boots off, and then sat down on the edge of the bed next to his brother, leaving Dean to dangle half on and half off the bed. It would’ve been painful to anybody less drunk, but Dean was boneless enough that he looked almost comfortable.

“You’re not forcing me to do anything. We’re partners, remember?”

“Kept pushing at you,” Dean argued.

Sam rubbed at his forehead and tried not to get irritated. “This conversation would be so much better if you were sober and coherent.”

Dean squinted and flailed his hand around until it slapped down on Sam’s thigh. “Kept. Pushin’,” he enunciated sloppily.

“Yeah, okay, you did. I get you, but it’s not like… I’m in it with you, okay? I wouldn’t have let you push if I wasn’t. I mean, I’m a big boy. I might not always be able to take you in a fair fight, but I know how to fight dirty.”

“Trapped you. N’where else to go,” Dean replied with all seriousness.

“So I pretended to want you and let you grope me? I’m not a child, and I know what my rights are as a human being. Hell, Dean, I know how to build a life from nothing better than anybody else out there.”

“Lucifer…”

“Doesn’t know what I feel or think any better than you apparently do. He was fishing, trying to find something to use against me. He’s the Devil. Twisting the truth is what he does. I never said he was right.”

Dean was quiet after that, and if it wasn’t for the fact that his eyes were still open, and drool wasn’t coming out of the side of his mouth, Sam would’ve thought he’d finally gone unconscious.

“Mean it?” Dean finally asked.

“Yes, I mean it. I want your aging, bow-legged, funny lipped bod. You make me fell all toasty inside, and even though I’m mildly disturbed by the thought of having your cock anywhere near my asshole, I still want to see just how ridiculous your ‘O’ face is when you come. Happy?”

“D’leriousiously,” Dean mumbled as he conked out.

Adam came back in not two minutes later with arm loads of soda and twinkies.

“Twinkies?” Sam asked.

“I was hungry! They’re good!” Adam said as he dumped his haul on the table. “He finally passed out, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sam said as he tugged the blankets out from under Dean and tucked him in properly.

“The offer on the couch still stands. I can’t imagine you want to sleep next to the distillery tonight,” Adam commented.

Sam smiled down gently at Dean. “No, I think I’ll stay right here.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, I’m thinking that as much as I suck what with getting the people I fall in love with killed, you’re actually worse at this committed relationship stuff than I am,” Sam started out as soon as he heard Dean flush the toilet after his first round of puking.

“I hate you. Both of you, just to be fair,” Dean groaned.

“Why do you hate Adam?” Sam asked, genuinely curious.

“Not Adam, the double of you I was seeing last night.” Dean clarified.

“Was he an evil Star Trek me? With the evil beard?”

“Dude, way to be an original series purist,” Adam interjected from where he was sorting socks from his early morning laundry run.

“Don’t love you. Hate you and want to die alone,” Dean mumbled.

“So you can go back to your spot in Heaven that you share with me. Brilliant plan there,” Sam commented as he walked into the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the tub.

“I said stupid stuff last night, huh?” Dean asked after a moment.

Sam smiled and reached over to rub at Dean’s shoulders. “You say stupid stuff all the time. It’s part of your charm.”

“I’m serious,” Dean snapped right before he gagged again.

“So am I. I don’t offer backrubs to just any drunkard heaving into my motel room toilet.”

“It must be true love.” Adam yelled sarcastically in response.

Dean winced at the sound.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do horrible things to him that I won’t mention right now the next time he’s hung over.”

“Sam, let me apologize so I can die with a clear conscience,” Dean begged.

“Do you really need to? I’ve got the gist. You took the whole Lucifer dreams thing the wrong way. You assumed that you were abusing me, and I was letting it happen because of my epic platonic love for you and that I didn’t know how to tell you ‘no.’ Then you got drunk because you couldn’t face it. Only because you’re stupid in love with me, you woke me up in the middle of the night to cry on my shoulder like a girl and tell me to leave you alone with your bad, incest loving ways.”

“That sounds so much worse than my memory: more stupidity, less noble, self-sacrificing flagellation.”

“Well, you almost pickled your brain last night. Your memory is a little suspect. Also, you need to quit eating thesauruses when you’re drunk.” Sam said as he handed his brother a glass of water.

“You two done kissing and making up in there?” Adam called.

Sam rolled his eyes and stalked out into the main room to hiss quietly at Adam about not giving Dean an even worse headache by yelling. He stopped short because Dean’s amulet was dangling from Adam’s fingers.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting away your laundry which I washed for you because you were too busy cuddling Snookums this morning.”

Sam snatched the amulet out of Adam’s grasp. “And that gives you the right to dig this out why?”

“Thought I’d return it to its rightful owner seems how you’re too chicken,” Adam whispered back.

“Not your call,” Sam informed him tersely.

“It’d be perfect, like a gay promise ring seems how you’re saving yourself for marriage,” Adam pointed out.

“I’m not saving it for marriage,” Sam grunted.

“You aren’t? Because I heard tell that you’ve got it locked up tighter than a n…”

“I can hear you whispering out there, and I’m assuming it’s about me!” Dean’s yell was followed by a pained grunt.

“I’m not. I’m talking to Sam about gay sex!” Adam yelled back.

“Find your own brother to do that with.”

“He is my brother!”

“Find your own little brother then; I’ve got dibs on the older one,” Dean replied as he stumbled out into the room and crashed face first onto the bed.

“Kind of impossible unless dear old Dad…”

“Finish that sentence and die,” Dean threatened as he leveled a queasy looking glare over his shoulder at Adam.

“Okay, Adam why don’t you go, I don’t know, buy alcohol or porn or something,” Sam suggested as physically moved between the two of them, pocketing the amulet into his jeans as he moved.

“Illegal booze or porn. Great, why don’t I just go buy a trucker hat and a box of chew while I’m at it,” Adam drawled.

Sam raised his hands in surrender because, hey, Dean would’ve been all for a booze and porn run. It wasn’t his fault that Mini-Dean was breaking form. “Then go read up on colleges and shit so you know where you and Dean are headed when you go play normal after the end of the world gets avoided.”

His first clue that maybe he shouldn’t have suggested that was the lack of sarcastic comments coming from either brother. His second was the, “How did you know about that?” that came out of Adam’s mouth.

Logically Sam shouldn’t still be hurt by it because he’d had time to adjust to the idea. But Adam’s surprise was a clear sign that he and Dean had planned on not telling him, and that made it bad all over again. Even though Dean had told him the plan, he hadn’t originally intended to tell him.

“I told him,” Dean said in his no-nonsense big brother voice that clearly said ‘drop it.’

Unfortunately for him, neither of his little brothers ever paid attention to it anymore if they ever had in the first place.

“It was supposed to be a secret!” Adam exclaimed.

“Well, don’t go trying to save my feelings or anything,” Sam said, and yes, he sounded like a sulky little bitch when he said it. It was that or go on a rant about the entire unfairness of his entire fucking life. Or what horrible assholes his brothers were planning to run off on him when one of them had the balls to confess his undying love, and the other was encouraging him to embrace said love.

Bitchy was the least Sam was entitled to be.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked as he struggled to his feet, eyes squinting in what Sam recognized as hangover pain more than irritation.

“What do you think it’s supposed to mean?” Sam shot back.

“I don’t know! All I know is that the two of you are arguing and whispering and fighting, and my head feels like it’s going to fall off!” Dean shouted then winced and rubbed at his forehead.

“I can’t believe… You get all upset because I didn’t put out because I wanted to talk to you about Satan himself invading my dreams, and now I can’t be upset with your little clandestine plan to dump me like some flea bitten stray for the newer shinier model? I’m not supposed to be upset that I’m good enough to break a few taboos for a good sex romp, but I’m not good enough for the mortgage, sixty hour a week job, and yard full of puppies?” Sam pushed all the indignation into his tone that he could muster.

Dean just stared blankly at him. It would’ve been more satisfying if he didn’t know the look as the one Dean got when he couldn’t grasp something.

Still, the blankness was far better than Adam’s reaction. The smug little fucker started laughing. If Sam hadn’t known that Dean had tested him with all manner of things after they rescued him from Zachariah, he’d swear that the kid was secretly evil.

“My God! I mean, I thought Dad had communication problems. The whole not mentioning two brothers thing was kind of a clue, but the two of you. Wow, man, just wow.”

“If I weren’t about to throw up, I’d hit you right no,.” Dean groaned.

“It’s true,” Adam retorted.

“Yeah? Well so is the fact that you’re an annoying brat, but I don’t feel the need to be telling you that all the time, now do I?” Dean snapped back.

Adam blithely ignored him and turned his focus on Sam. “It was a surprise, you moron. Mr. Lovestruck over there cooked it up one drunken night. Kept going on and on about how he wished we could all just have a normal life. How his ‘Sammy’ deserved to have his little home and college degree even though you said you didn’t want it anymore. How he wished that we could all just settle down like a real family and not worry about angels and demons and the end of the world.”

“Adam…” Dean growled threateningly.

“So I tell him that he should totally tell you that, but the stubborn cuss starts talking about how he tried, and you wouldn’t hear of it. You just wanted to hunt. To which I say that after the apocalypse, anybody would want some downtime, and if he just happened to hand you it on a silver platter, there was no way you were going to turn him down.”

Adam paused and leveled a glare at Dean. “Of course, the brilliance of the plan was not saying anything so that he didn’t have time to shoot holes in it.”

They all awkwardly shuffled for a moment and eyed their footwear, in Dean’s case his socks, before Sam cleared his throat, “That true, Dean?”

“No, I made it up off the top of my head,” Adam said.

Sam pinched Adam’s arm and scowled at him. “Dean?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s true. Only now you’re going to be all hunter-y and logical about it,” Dean mumbled.

“Which is better than me thinking I wasn’t invited how?”

Dean looked affronted at that. “Why would you think you weren’t invited?”

“I don’t know, because you told me it was all about Adam, and how you were going to be there for him? There wasn’t exactly any space left for the giant third wheel to your bromance,” Sam told him bitterly.

“You’re always invited!” Dean protested. “I mean, most times - when you’re not doing something stupidly evil and not listening to me about how bad an idea it is.”

“Maybe I should change my focus to psychology and major in couples counseling. You’d make a great case study.” Adam said as he glanced between the two of them. “I mean, you’re totally dysfunctional and codependent and irrationally obsessed with each other. It’s either head shrink or novelist.”

“Wait, are you trying to figure out how to make money off us?” Dean asked him, incredulity strong on his features.

“Yeah?” Adam answered in a tone that clearly said ‘duh.’

“Seriously?”

“Hey, do you think that Chuck could sue him for copyright infringement if he wrote about us?” Sam interrupted quickly.

Dean’s, “We should sue Chuck for copyright infringement on our lives,” was overshadowed by Adam’s, “I’m smart enough to not do a direct translation!”

“So to recap, Dean and I are uncommunicative losers, and you’re a money hungry one,” Sam announced.

“Pretty much,” Adam agreed, “but in your defense, at least you didn’t drink yourself to a stupor over it.”

Dean snorted, and Sam blushed because Sam’s drinking problem was far worse than alcohol, and they both knew it. But they’d had enough drama for the past twenty-four hours, so Sam just smiled and nodded. Dean stumbled back to bed with a promise to not discuss things in a very unclear fashion with Sam once the dwarves quit mining the inside of his skull for gold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Swamp Thing met its bitter end that night, much to both Adam and Dean’s delight. Seemed that even though it was covered in wet slime, the potion that ended it caused flames and a small explosion – it made getting rid of the body a moot point.

Dean was all for hunting down every single one of them after the apocalypse was finally averted. Adam told him that they needed to buy seasons of Myth Busters on DVD because there were totally explosions in almost every episode, and it would be worth the money and having to store them in the Impala.

Sam objected to the plan when it started to include using his laptop as a DVD player, but he got vetoed when an unhinged zombie broke into a media store in a small city in Kentucky. Adam pocketed a portable player while Sam and Dean had pretended to survey the crime scene as Federal investigators.

Dean approved wholeheartedly. Sam just shook his head and wondered if the whole morally dubious way of life was really the learned behavior that he thought it had been. Given their proclivity towards incest and Adam’s odd support of it, maybe their father had really just been a ball of criminal intent waiting to happen.

Not that there had been a whole lot of incest going on lately because Dean was a contrary bastard. Once they’d finally gotten their issues aired out, and Sam was on the right page with the still being wanted and desired and not going to be discarded because of the crappy hand that fate had dealt him, Dean just seemed to lose interest.

Or, rather, he seemed to lose interest in sex. He still seemed to be on board with the boyfriend bit if the way that he glared at any pretty brunette that gave Sam so much as a smile was any indication. Then again, knowing Dean, it could also be him being overprotective, working out emotional trauma, or just plain being a dick for the sheer pleasure of reminding himself that he’s the oldest and the coolest Winchester brother.

Sam didn’t think he was the best person to analyze Dean’s behavior. His taste in significant others was for shit ever since Jess, so there was a chance that he’d actually sabotaged his relationship with Dean by virtue of being in it in the first place.

“Sammy, pay attention,” Dean commanded as he dangled his car keys in front of Sam’s face.

Sam swatted his hand away and made a sound of disgust. It was pure habit to do it, but Dean grinned anyway and brought the keys right back up, jangling them this time so that they let out a metallic chime. Sam batted at them again with an added grunt. Dean brought them back and bounced them up and down. Sam tried to grab at the keys this time, but Dean jerked them away with a silent chuckle.

“OH MY GOD! You two…” Adam snapped from the other side of the room where he was trying to watch an infomercial of some sort.

“Isn’t he adorable? He used to do the same thing when he was a baby.” Dean said in a tone that was disturbingly doting.

“Dude, that’s kinda sick,” Adam informed him, for which Sam was grateful because he didn’t want to be the one to tell Dean that.

Dean didn’t look all that upset about it. “Whatever, you’re just jealous.”

“Did you want something?” Sam asked before they could get into a squabble about Adam’s lack of an inappropriate homosexual relationship with a close relative.

“Now that you mention it…” Dean drifted off and waggled his eyebrows.

Sam rolled his eyes and looked pointedly at the keys that were still clutched in Dean’s hand.

“Take a drive with me?” Dean ordered more than asked.

“Why?”

“So I can watch television in peace?” Adam suggested.

Dean shot their little brother a dirty look. “So that we can talk about Adam and plan his gruesome demise.”

“Like I won’t get resurrected anyway, fucking angels,” Adam grumbled as he jacked the volume up on his program.

Sam groaned and pushed out of his chair to go grab his jacket. Better to go with Dean and find out what he wanted than to listen to Dean bicker with Mini-Dean

~~~~~~~~~

They drove out of town with the radio blasting. Dean, unsurprisingly, said nothing once they actually made it out to the car. He was driving with purpose though, not checking out road signs or glancing around at intersections. He knew where he was headed. Sam wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Finally, Dean pulled off on a partially obscured dirt road. They traveled down its potholed surface farther than Sam would’ve expected his brother to drive his beloved car over such a surface when they weren’t actually on a case.

It was a momentary shock to Sam’s ears when the blaring sound of the music cut off along with the purr of the Impala’s engine. They sat for a moment, shaded in by trees growing too close to the road, listening to the car tick as it settled and cooled.

Dean’s hands fisted on the steering wheel as he gazed out the windshield. He didn’t say anything, but it was clear by the way he kept clenching and releasing his jaw that he was trying to work up to it.

After a couple of minutes, he finally unbuckled his seatbelt and turned towards Sam. Then he practically plastered himself against Sam as he wriggled his six foot frame over the console and into Sam’s lap. It wasn’t comfortable by any means. Dean ate cheeseburgers and fries and worked out by running for his life. He was heavy.

Sam would’ve complained about having Dean cut off his circulation in such a manner if he hadn’t had Dean’s tongue in his mouth. And, okay, Dean’s tongue was still amazingly talented – in a really hot and nasty kind of way that may have been giving Sam’s dick ideas.

His mumbled, “Mmphuph,” was meant to convey a myriad of things including, “Get your bony knee off my hip,” and, “Let’s get naked.”

Dean answered his comment with his own hybrid whine that was, admittedly, sexier and more lust inducing than Sam’s. The fact that Dean managed to wriggle a hand between them to start working on the fly to Sam’s jeans was just plain unfair

.

Sam tried to reciprocate, and prove that he wasn’t completely outclassed in the sex department, by sliding his own hands down Dean’s back to grab at his ass only said buttocks were firmly pushed up against the dashboard. Sam didn’t fancy getting his fingers broken by trying to wedge them into the nonexistent gap.

Dean didn’t seem to notice Sam’s conundrum as he continued to make pleased little noises in his throat while his lips did vile things to his brother’s mouth, and his one unfettered hand managed to actually unbutton and unzip Sam’s jeans – which also meant that he had managed to unbuckle his belt. Dexterity like that was just not natural.

Finally, Dean moved off Sam’s mouth and proceeded to kiss along his jaw until he latched on to the soft juncture where it met up with Sam’s neck. He hummed to himself as he sucked at that point, and for a second, Sam felt his brain go offline as his blood supply tried to migrate entirely to his cock.

Still, the passenger side front seat of any car, not even Dean’s beloved Impala, was not made for two muscular men of over six feet tall to have sex in.

“Dean!” Sam finally managed to protest.

Dean stopped his sucking, but didn’t move his mouth from its location when he replied, “That does not sound like a happy, ‘Dean!’”

“It’s a, I’m going to lose my leg if you don’t get off it, ‘Dean.’” Sam confirmed. While he really wanted to continue the process of getting laid, he’d like to have all of his limbs in working order afterwards. He needed his legs for running from zombies and running towards his impending doom. They were essential that way.

Dean grunted and swore and shimmied a little, which let blood back into Sam’s leg. His nerve endings abruptly started firing up to inform him that they didn’t like Dean’s sexy bowlegged ways one damn bit.

“Fuck,” Sam hissed as he tried to shift to ease the non-erection throbbing that started up.

“Was the idea,” Dean agreed sullenly as he twisted to crawl back over to the driver’s side.

Sam fought the smile that tugged at his lips. “Are you pouting?”

“No.”

“You are. You are pouting,” Sam crowed.

Dean grunted and let himself out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him.

While Sam was usually the one stalking away in a huff, he wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with chasing after his brother. It didn’t take him long to follow after. “Dean, come on,” he protested as he chased after him.

“It isn’t funny, Sammy,” Dean snapped as he spun around to face his brother.

“You were trying to seduce me in the Impala,” Sam said slowly, putting on his best shy smile. He had no idea if it would work on Dean, but it used to work wonders on Jess when she was pissed at him.

“Yeah? So? I thought it’d be romantic,” Dean huffed out.

Sam felt his eyebrows rise and barely fought off the urge to jerk his head a little in shock. Romantic?

“What, it was!” Dean said, and Sam cursed the fact that Dean had had a lifetime of reading Sam’s facial expressions.

“Getting busy on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere on a Tuesday afternoon in a car that our father left you is not anybody’s definition of romantic.”

Dean looked offended at that. “It’s got symbolism.”

“What?”

“We both lost our virginity in that car, and I kind of figured that we could lose our… you know together.”

Sam had to admit that the idea was kind of romantic, in a dysfunctional Dean sort of way. Still, it wasn’t the best thought out plan in the world. “In the front seat?” he asked.

Dean shrugged. “I got ahead of myself.”

Sam nodded, then tilted his head to the side. “Huh.”

“What?”

“Well, we’re out here already, and if we keep putting this off, it’s only going to get more awkward because first times always are even if you aren’t getting it on with…”

Dean cut Sam off with a kiss. “Can’t you just ask me to fuck you?”

“I was hoping to fuck you,” Sam corrected.

Dean frowned and then headed back towards the car. He turned his head around to shout over his shoulder, “Okay, but not always, ‘cause a man can’t ignore his urges all the time, not even when he’s in love.”

Sam shook his head and followed, watching as Dean started stripping on his way back to the car. He didn’t toss his clothes aside, but he did manage to yank off his shirts and keep them clutched in his hands. Sam tried not to appreciate the view too much. His own jeans were still gaping open, and Dean would notice if his ‘interest’ had fully returned without any additional touching.

“Took you long enough,” Dean said as he dropped his shirts next to the car and proceeded to work on removing the rest of his clothing starting with his boots.

It wasn’t the sexiest strip that Sam had ever seen. It was sort of disturbingly normal. Just Dean getting undressed in a hurry, eerily similar to the way he disrobed whenever he was covered in monster goo of the week. Still, at the end of it, Dean was naked and hard, and Sam’s dick appreciated the view. A lot.

Dean swept his eyes over Sam’s still clothed form slowly. “I’m surprised you ever get laid.”

Sam flipped him off and yanked his flannel shirt off, throwing it at his brother. Dean caught it easily. Instead of tossing it into the pile of his own discarded clothing, he opened the back door to the Impala and crawled into the backseat with it.

The view of Dean’s pale ass as he crawled in distracted Sam for a moment before he hurriedly stumbled out of his own clothes, Dean wasn’t the only Winchester that had perfect the art of disrobement. When he ducked his head into the car, he could see Dean wiggling on his hands and knees. His cock jerked a little as he watched the movement.

“What are you doing?” Sam practically purred as he bent to climb in and join.

Dean glanced over his shoulder and waggled his eyebrows suggestively, “Laying your stupid shirt down so we don’t get spunk on my baby.”

Sam felt his mouth open at that, but he really couldn’t say anything. On the one hand, he wanted to get laid very badly. On the other, it was his shirt.

“And on the other, I’m about to let you put that thing up my ass in the name of orgasms and the ending of unbearable sexual tension. Get over it,” Dean groused as he performed his eerie older brother mind reading trick again.

“I hate you,” Sam grumbled even as he slid his hands over Dean’s backside to grab at his hips.

“But you love my perky ass and pretty lips,” Dean countered.

Sam curved down to place a kiss on the small of Dean’s back. “Don’t remember saying anything about your lips.”

Dean hummed a little in appreciation before responding with, “You were thinking it. Everybody does. Mostly because I’m an awesome kisser, but sometimes because they think I should be doing other things with them.”

Sam smiled and started kissing his way up Dean’s spine to the back of his neck, shifting awkwardly in the car to accommodate the motion. “I’m a good kisser myself. We should kiss together and compare notes,” he whispered against Dean’s ear.

Dean grunted and instead of turning his head to comply with Sam’s not so subtle kissing suggestion, he smacked his brother in the abdomen with a backwards moving fist. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but it dawned on him that Dean’s fist wasn’t quite solid and seemed to be holding a small bottle of lube and a condom packet.

“Smooth, real smooth,” Sam complained even as he took the items and tossed the condom up on the back window ledge so that he had both hands free to apply the lube.

“Horny, very horny,” Dean corrected as he squirmed forward to give Sam more room and coincidentally shoved his backside up higher.

“You’re pushy. And bossy,” Sam grumbled as he squirted a glob of lube straight into Dean’s ass crack.

“Fuck,” Dean hissed in response, “that isn’t the self-warming stuff, Sammy.”

“I know.”

“Thinking about not putting out,” Dean growled.

Sam snorted and ran his fingers through the lube so that he could start rubbing against Dean’s pucker. He slid his other hand between Dean’s legs to grasp at his erection. It was still hard and hot, and it was already leaking. Dean writhed encouragingly, but didn’t say anything.

“Yeah, I can see that you’re not into this anymore,” Sam taunted just as he shoved the tip of a finger in.

There wasn’t much resistance, and Dean reared back against the intrusion forcing the finger farther inside than Sam had been planning. It was hot and snug. Sam bit his lip in concentration because he didn’t want it to be his finger in there. He wanted to be his penis. He wanted to be on top of Dean, fucking in and out of that tiny, forbidden place. He wanted to make his big brother moan and whine and take pleasure from having Sam inside of him.

Letting out a little growl, Sam shoved his second finger in more forcefully than he had intended. Dean hissed at the intrusion, but didn’t shift away. Sam twisted his fingers together and pushed them in and out of the hole, watching with unhealthy fascination as the little opening gripped around them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be stretching and stuff? Not going to fit that cock in there if you don’t work me a little more, Sammy.”

Sam forced himself not to roll his eyes. Why did he ever think that Dean would quit being his know-it-all self just because they were about to have sex? He was tempted to just shove a third finger in out of spite, but even with the lube, Dean felt too tight. The last thing that Sam needed to do was put Dean in actual pain or tear him from improper stretching. He’d never hear the end of it.

With a bit more flexing and twisting, he managed to get a third finger in. By that time, Dean was grunting obscenities, and Sam was pretty much agreeing with him wholeheartedly. Mindlessly, he pulled his fingers free with a pop and rubbed lube over his cock, staring intently and the way that Dean’s pucker was instantly shadowed once Sam’s hand wasn’t there to keep the opening exposed.

“Come on,” Dean hissed.

Sam tore open the condom and rolled it on as fast as he could given the slick state of his hands. He was going to have to work on his lubing technique. Girls were so much easier in that area.

“Quit thinking, start fucking!” Dean snapped as he wiggled his ass impatiently.

“My brother, the romantic,” Sam mumbled as he lined the head of his cock up and pushed.

“Sammy,” Dean groaned, and Sam felt both disappointment and pride that there wasn’t a hint of discomfort in the sound. Adam might be a little right about them having complex relationship issues. Sam wasn’t the type that liked to cause his partners pain.

Slowly he thrust forward while Dean fucked backwards at a quicker pace. Only when he was fully sheathed, did Dean reach backwards to hold him still. “Give me a second,” he panted, “You’re bigger than I thought.”

Sam kissed his shoulder soothingly in response.

Dean snorted, “Dude, not a girl.”

Sam reached around to cup Dean’s balls gently and roll them in his palm. “No, you’re not.”

Dean purred a little and wriggled. Sam moaned because, yeah, Dean was warm and tight on his dick, and Sam learned that six foot plus of wriggling muscle was very underrated. It was hot and sexy despite the lack of jiggling curves, maybe better. The extra power behind the motion was so worth the lack of boobs.

“Dean,” Sam whined and circled his hips a little trying to get a little friction going.

“Okay, okay. Take me, big boy.”

Sam rolled his eyes then pulled out a little and thrust back in. Dean made an encouraging noise that was obviously faked for Sam’s benefit. Sam redoubled his efforts because there was no way he was going to be that guy that was a selfish bastard in bed; Dean taught him better than that.

It took him five embarrassing thrusts before he finally got the angle right to his Dean’s prostate. A seatbelt buckle was digging into his left knee, and he was going to be feeling the stretch in his inner right thigh from the way that he was holding his weight on it, but Dean had literally started to tremble and whimper when he’d finally hit the spot. It was a beautiful sight to see all of that muscled back quiver in anticipation of his next thrust, and Dean’s mouth was uttering tiny ‘uhs’ of pleasure that were far better than any phony porn dialogue.

“Like that?” he teased as he started rolling his hips in a faster rhythm now that he had the right angle.

Dean, the bastard, wriggled again in response, and Sam’s next two thrusts were off their mark. He couldn’t help it, the sight of Dean’s backside moving like that was distracting, especially with the way that it was holding Sam’s cock inside.

“You asked for it.” Sam warned his brother before starting to pump harder.

“Fuck, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. Damned hips are good for something,” Dean’s words were less inspired dirty talk and more commentary, but the pleasure from the act wasn’t letting Sam’s brain process much beyond the fact that Dean liked the new pace.

So naturally he upped the ante and then promptly forgot all about Dean for a few seconds because, holy fuck, it felt great. It was better than at least the last three women he’d slept with. It was possibly better than his first time with Jess even with the seatbelt holder that was digging into his left knee and the cramp developing in his lower back.

“Sammy,” Dean’s whine was accompanied by another shift of muscles as he redistributed his weight onto one arm, reaching down between his legs to tug at his own cock.

The strength in the movements distracted Sam for a second. He knew how powerful and tough Dean was, but the way that his shoulder flexed and strained to even out their combined weight was almost hypnotic. It was beautiful in a way that it shouldn’t be.

“Fuck, Dean,” he whimpered as he increased the tempo of his pounding even more.

“That’s the idea,” Dean grunted sarcastically, but the words lost their sting due to the breathless way they were said.

The Impala rocked, its springs taking the brunt of their movements as easily as she had any bumpy road or demon attack. Then Sam groaned, and his muscles locked up, and he started coming. It was bad form. Dean was never, ever going to let him forget that he was topping and came first. The top never came first. It was one of Dean’s sacred sex rules. Rules that he had drilled into a teenage Sam’s head before his first date despite the pillows that he’d tried to clap over his ears.

“Hgngh,” Sam grunted as he tried to keep thrusting, sweeping a hand over Dean’s back and side to encourage him.

It worked. Dean’s entire frame stiffened, and his arm quit flexing for a split second as he choked out a moan. He grunted again as his hand started moving at a much slower pace, obviously wringing out the last of his orgasm.

Sam leaned back, working a hand between their bodies to grasp at the base of the condom before pulling out. Forget worrying about the upholstery, spunk coming out of a condom was just not sexy.

“Fuck,” Dean said as Sam pulled out. He stretched like a cat, muscles rippling down from his shoulders to his ass, and Sam fought to keep a scowl off his face as his dick twitched the tiniest bit in response. Dean was totally doing that little arching thing on purpose, and he full well knew that Sam wasn’t able to do anything about it.

“Cock tease,” Sam accused as he awkwardly maneuvered to get out of the backseat and dispose of the condom.

“Aww, Sammy. Already? I’m flattered,” Dean drawled as he shuffled backwards to pull up the clothing that he’d dropped in the seat to take care of his own come.

“Jerk, no. Wait. Bitch,” Sam hissed, purposely overemphasizing the word.

Dean slid back faster, naked ass pushing into Sam, overbalancing him so that he toppled out of the backdoor and onto the ground.

“What was that, Sammy? I thought I heard something but it’s hard to hear over your little girl whining.” Dean taunted.

His pale ankle was just within reach. It’d be easy to grab hold of and pull Dean out into the wilderness with him, but Sam refrained. For one thing, he didn’t want Dean’s heavy carcass crashing down on him. For another, Dean was still on all fours as he patted over the seats of the Impala making sure that none of their exploits had damaged her. If Sam yanked on him, there was a good chance that Dean was going to hit his privates in the fall.

There was no way that Sam was ever going to put himself in the position of doing that to Dean’s second most prized possession.

“You ought to be happy that ass of yours has survived all the burgers you’ve eaten otherwise I’d trade you in,” Sam grumbled as he struggled to his feet, dusting dirt and dead grass off parts of him that he generally avoided getting so dirty.

“For a younger model? You cheating on me with the little Winchester? Already?” Dean mocked heartlessly as he twisted around in the backseat and somehow came out with a pair of underwear on.

Sam looked over at their heap of discarded clothing. There were still two pairs of underwear there. “You stashed boxers in there?”

“Dude, please. Boxer briefs,” Dean corrected as he slid out of the back and started getting dressed, tossing items of Sam’s clothing at him.

“I really hate you sometimes,” Sam grumbled.

“Yeah, but the rest of the time you love me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There were few things worse than doing the walk of shame. Somehow Sam had forgotten this after he moved out of the dorms and into his little, ratty apartment with Jess. The way Adam leered at him when he walked through the motel room door was an unwelcome reminder.

“Way to go,” Adam said as he gave Sam an obnoxious thumbs up.

“I hate you. So much,” Sam muttered as he felt himself blush.

“No picking on my boyfriend,” Dean ordered as he came through the door with his customary, ‘I so got laid,’ swagger.

“Aww, that’s so swee…” Adam stopped to cough as Dean dropped a duffle bag down on his stomach.

“No fair,” Adam wheezed.

“Sam’s sensitive. Don’t fuck this up for me,” Dean whispered.

“Dean, I’m two feet away. I can still hear you,” Sam pointed out.

“Whatever,” Dean growled, his face flushing.

Sam could’ve made a point of it. He wasn’t made out of glass for fuck’s sake, but it was Dean, and Dean wasn’t exactly well versed in maintaining a romantic relationship. Sam could take a hit to his pride for the fact that Dean was trying.

Unfortunately Adam wasn’t so nice a guy. “Please, like Sam was the one taking it. We all know that you’d do literally anything for him, and I’m thinking that includes being the sacrificial ass virgin.”

Dean went straight to pissed. Sam didn’t bother stopping him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, so I was a dick. A major dick. Grade A USDA certified dick,” Adam mumbled from the backseat.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed conversationally as he scanned through the latest text that they’d ‘liberated’ from a questionable book dealer in Tucson.

“How long can he hold a grudge?” Adam said his eyes indicating Dean who was no doubt flirting with the gas station attendant in order to hide the fact that he was shoplifting half of the gum display.

“You know Dean,” Sam sighed.

“No, actually, I don’t.”

“Look, Adam, you know how some big brothers will follow their siblings around to intimidate the bully trying to take their lunch money?”

“Yeah?” Adam answered, his face scrunched in confusion.

“Dean’s the sort that followed me around, threatened the bully with a knife and then took the bully’s money so we could buy the good cereal the next time Dad took us to a grocery store. Then, Dean taught me how to use a knife because he couldn’t always be there. So you know, he’s not the greatest at reacting in a rational manner.”

“So you’re saying that Dean’s screwed in the head over you? New flash, Sammy, I already knew that. The whole butt sex thing was a dead giveaway.”

Sam rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t call me Sammy.”

The driver’s side door creaked open as Dean got back into the cart, his pockets bulging with ill gotten convenience store gain while he tossed a sack at Adam that held the items he had actually purchased.

“Hey, Honey. The kid behave while I was gone?”

“I hate you. So much,” Sam told him as he shoved his hand into Dean’s coat pocket to steal a piece of candy.

“Does that mean I’m not getting any sugar tonight?” Dean asked with a leer.

“Dude, please. Like you’ve been getting any the last few nights,” Adam pointed out.

Dean rolled his eyes and gunned the engine, spinning out of the gas station like a pack of hellhounds was on their tail. Sam grunted in irritation while Adam flew forward, not having secured his seatbelt when he got back from the restroom.

“You know, you could totally get laid tonight if you play your cards right,” Adam said as he struggled into his seatbelt. Dean flipped him off and threw a bag of skittles at him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Exactly three days later, Sam was ready to explode. It was one thing to not be getting laid because the apocalypse was a major downer and some days a guy just couldn’t get it up. It was quite another thing to be constantly cock blocked by your younger brother.

Not that Sam had any intention of mentioning that to Dean because Dean would most likely point out how Sam had reveled in keeping Dean from hooking up for years. Then they’d fight, and with Adam around they wouldn’t be able to patch things up. Which really? That kind of sucked. As much as Sam hated to admit it, make up sex had always been a great way for him to get over the fights that he’d had with Jess.

He was a typical guy in that situation, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. He’d be willing to bet that Dean would be just as much of a guy and forgive Sam at a drop of the pants. Then again, Dean was also known to be a contrary son of a bitch, so there was the chance that he’d just be an ass after sex.

The point was that Sam wasn’t ever going to have the chance to figure that out because Adam was a serious kink in his kinky plans for Dean. Groping in public washrooms was all well and good, but Sam liked sex. There were major benefits to having it on a very regular basis.

So he dug out his set of keys for the Impala while Dean was showering off the goo from the latest monster hunt and threw them in Adam’s direction.

“I thought you were supposed to be the classy one,” Adam said with his infuriating little brother smirk.

“I thought you wanted to have some alone time with the Impala,” Sam countered.

Adam’s face looked aggrieved at Sam’s words. “You’re whoring the family car out so that you can get laid? That’s low.”

Despite the fact that Adam was younger and significantly shorter than Dean, Sam knew a bluff about motor vehicles when he saw one. He held his hand out and made a grabbing motion for the keys only to see them disappear inside the tight grasp of Adam’s fist.

“I’m not opposed to paying for it,” Adam said.

“Just so you know? That’s creepy.”

“Says the guy fucking his own brother,” Adam shot back even as he moved towards the door, grabbing his jacket as he went.

Sam tried not the exhale in relief when he heard the Impala tear out of the parking lot. He had no real reason to feel that way when Michael was out for Adam’s blood, and Dean would be out for Sam’s blood if anything happened to his beloved ‘Baby.’ But Sam was horny and desperate. He’d worry about the technicalities later.

When Sam lived with Jess, romance was always the key to a good night’s loving. She was a great girl, easy going and hot for Sam’s body, but even she had her standards. But Dean wasn’t Jess, and the only way to romance him would include waxing the Impala half naked with a soundtrack of ancient rock music. That was out of the question for so many reasons, the least of which was the fact that Sam had just sent Adam off with said Impala.

Thankfully, Dean was still the same old pervert he’d always been. Stripping down to his birthday suit and tossing lube and condoms on a motel bed normally would have made Sam feel cheap and easy. But he didn’t have time for anything else, and Dean had seen him in worse situations. He couldn’t bring himself to recline on the bed in a sexy pose though. There just wasn’t any way that he was going to open himself up to that sort of ridicule.

The door to the bathroom creaked open, and for a few seconds the only sound that either of them made was a strangled, “Dude,” that came out of Dean’s mouth. Before Sam could feel too awkward or embarrassed, Dean was hurling himself over the few feet of ugly motel carpeting that separated them. He slammed into Sam full throttle, and they toppled onto the bed so hard that they bounced upwards before settling down onto its surface.

The bottle of lube was digging into the small of Sam’s back, but he couldn’t complain because Dean’s tongue was down his throat attempting to excavate his voice box. Dean’s hands were roaming all over Sam’s skin, stroking and teasing and just plain feeling him up in a way that shouldn’t feel filthy but did.

The wet drag of Dean’s skin against Sam’s dry was weirdly enticing, and Sam didn’t hesitate to grab the globes of Dean’s ass in both hands to pull him closer. Dean moaned and ground his cock down in appreciation before he pulled his mouth away to remind Sam that, “S’my turn to top.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sam told him with a dirty leer. He liked sticking his dick in tight wet places, but he also knew that Dean loved sticking his there too. Compromise was key to any relationship.

“Good,” Dean stated firmly before he dove down to start giving Sam hickeys. His fingers started trailing along Sam’s sides in an almost ticklish light touch. It was maddening, so Sam rolled them over, pinning Dean to the bed beneath him.

“Hey!” Dean protested.

Sam plucked the lube off the bed and dangled it right over Dean’s nose, making those stupidly pretty eyes cross themselves in an effort to focus. “You want?” Sam taunted with a smile.

Dean literally growled and snatched the bottles out of Sam’s hand. They tussled for a bit, but Sam wasn’t surprised to find himself on his stomach seconds later. Dean straddled him and slapped his ass for good measure.

“Stay and be good,” he ordered breathlessly, his dick pressing briefly against the swell of Sam’s butt as he repositioned himself.

“Thought you wanted me to be bad,” Sam said as he shifted to make the position more comfortable.

“Oh, I want you to be a very bad boy for me,” Dean purred as he squirted lube out of the bottle. Sam could hear the distinctly wet noise it made as Dean removed it from its packaging, but there was no immediate feeling of cold wetness anywhere on Sam’s body even though he could hear the distinct sound of lube squelching.

The echo of the bottle cap clicking shut seemed loud in the room, but still no untoward advances were made towards Sam’s ass. Sam was about to ask what was going on when Dean’s wet, warm finger slid between his ass cheeks. “Real men warm it first,” Dean scolded Sam as he worked.

Having been used to warm the lube, the hand that was holding Sam’s ass open for display was slick. Dean’s wet fingers grasped the muscle firmly as he worked his fingers inside, slicking up Sam’s entrance like a pro. And yea, Sam knew that Dean had experienced a lot of sex in his time, but he also know that Dean didn’t sleep around with other guys.

Which meant that some girl, somewhere had actually been into having anal with Dean. Which meant that Dean hadn’t lied about at least one of his encounters with the opposite sex. It was a little mind boggling to think about.

“Tight ass,” Dean commented. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Very funny,” Sam grunted as Dean worked another finger in. “Aren’t you supposed to be hitting my magical love spot or something by now?”

“Your what?” Dean sounded scandalized even though he continued to finger fuck Sam’s hole with almost mechanical thrusts.

“I don’t know; you’re the one who reads romance novels,” Sam taunted.

Dean’s fingers crooked and stabbed, almost instantly pushing against Sam’s prostate. The breath that Sam had been inhaling got stuck in his throat as he tried to simultaneously press into and get away from the pressure of it. A tiny whimper came out of his throat, and Dean rubbed his fingers against the spot again.

“You were saying something about a love spot?” Dean asked innocently.

“Dean, you’re an asshole,” Sam growled as he pushed back on Dean’s fingers.

With a quick jerk, Dean pulled all three of them out. “Yeah, I am,” he agreed smugly.

Threats of retribution hovered on Sam’s lips, but the crinkled of the condom packet opening was enough to keep him quiet. So long as Dean got with the program, Sam could give him some leniency.

Dean grunted as he rolled the condom on, an excited little sound held low in his throat that Sam recognized from hunts. It was the same noise he made when he thought they were about to kill something cool. Sam wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he didn’t get time to analyze the concept.

One of Dean’s hands curled around Sam’s hip and tugged up, urging him into the position that Dean wanted him in. Sam complied. Before he knew it, Dean was buried snugly inside of him, his warm body draped over Sam’s back.

“Fuck,” Sam breathed out.

“I’m a ninja,” Dean replied full of smugness. “A sex ninja,” he added like Sam didn’t get what he was referring to.

Sam really, really wanted to make a quip about that, but his synapses were busy misfiring. They couldn’t seem to agree to focus on any one thing, and the end result was that his cock was drooling onto the motel bedspread while his ass rocked backwards in a very undignified and demanding way.

“Pushy bottom,” Dean chided as he lightly slapped Sam’s ass.

“Kinky bastard,” Sam sputtered in shock.

“You know it,” Dean retorted as he pulled and shoved back in, nailing Sam’s prostate on the first damn try. If he wasn’t busy getting fucked, Sam would hate Dean for being able to do that.

“That’s it,” Dean encouraged as he started up a steady rhythm, “you like that, huh?”

Sam ignored his brother in favor of reaching down to tug at his own cock. Dean’s ego didn’t need the boost. He knew he was good. There’d be no living with him if Sam confirmed it.

Dean didn’t have any such worries. “Yeah, you like it. I know those little, hidden noises you make when its good for you. Motel walls aren’t that thick.”

A mental image of Dean listening to Sam jerk off in the shower flashed through Sam’s imagination. That Dean might’ve beaten off to the noises that Sam had tried to hide under sprays of water made Sam’s gut coil with dirty lust. As Dean seemed to have impeccable timing, he thrust in hard just when Sam was curling his hand around the head of his cock. He pinched harder and tugged stronger than he had planned, and Sam ended up shooting his load right into his fist.

First to come again. He really hoped that wasn’t going to become his new sex habit.

“Sammy,” Dean breathed out as his thrusts started getting faster and less regular. He didn’t even grunt as he came, but the way he stilled was a good enough indication. So was his heavy frame crashing down on Sam’s back and the nose that started nuzzling the back of his neck.

“Dude,” Sam choked out as he tried to wriggle out from underneath Dean’s weight. “I need to breathe.”

“Mmm,” Dean replied as he obligingly rolled away and threw the condom in the trash by the cheap desk the motel provided.

“You’re leaving it there?” Sam asked.

“Adam knows we were doing the nasty,” Dean said with a shrug as he grabbed his used towel from his earlier shower and wiped his mostly soft dick off. “And you know that chick at the counter thought we were doing it. No need to try to hide it in the bathroom trash.”

“You’re so romantic,” Sam sarcastically chided as he snatched the towel out of Dean’s hands to clean his stomach off.

“But I’m hot,” Dean reminded him as he stole the towel back. “Turn around,” he ordered.

“Why?” Sam felt justified in his suspicion. He did not want to have his ass whapped by that towel.

“So I can clean you up,” Dean said. “Lube isn’t that much fun once the orgasms are over.”

 

“You are not wiping my ass for me. I’m not, that isn’t, I’m not a baby,” Sam settled on saying.

Dean made a face. “Way to remind me of baby you and the messes you used to make.”

“Look, just… never say anything like that again,” Sam ordered.

Dean didn’t look impressed by his new rule. “You started it,” he reminded Sam.

“I did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not, and don’t start arguing with me like we’re kids,” Sam blurted out as he grabbed the towel again.

“Fine,” Dean huffed before walking over to steal a pair of Sam’s clean underwear because he was still a jerk like that even after Sam arranged for him to get laid.

“Sammy?” Dean asked softly.

“What now?” Sam replied all fake annoyance.

Dean didn’t verbally reply, just spun Sam around and pulled his face down for a very messy kiss. “I love you too,” he grumbled, cheeks turning pink.

“Okay?” Sam replied uncertainly.

Dean hugged him.

“Did Michael just visit you? Was he hiding in my bag?” Sam didn’t feel bad for panicking. For all he knew archangels could hang out in plaid shirts and blue jeans all the time.

“You’re an idiot,” Dean told him as he backed away and slipped his amulet on back over his head.

Sam stood there and stared for a moment taking in the sight of that ugly piece of jewelry back around its rightful owner’s neck. Dean in all his naked glory had put on his amulet before his purloined pair of boxers. That ugly, gold talisman was just sitting there between Dean’s firm pecs, taunting Sam with how perfectly content it looked.

It was only natural that he tackled Dean down onto the unused bed in the room to molest him. A man could only face so much torment. Besides, he was officially Dean’s favorite person again.

Adam could damn well sleep on the couch.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The End

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] The Middle Child / written by morrezela](https://archiveofourown.org/works/603120) by [EosRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EosRose/pseuds/EosRose)




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